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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193047">A Stark In Winterfell</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness'>qodarkness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gifts Universe AU, Magic, Smut, Stark family relationships - Freeform, Which are snarky but sweet, always smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,464</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193047</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It is part of the song,” said Bran. “Sansa seeing the betrothal banner being carried towards her as she waited for Theon on the high walls, the same walls from which they’d flown together. I’m told young women in Flea Bottom positively swoon at that bit.”</p>
<p>“Gag, more like it,” replied Arya and Bran turned his most enigmatic and annoying smile on her. She glared at him again and then poked her tongue out, quite solemnly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (minor), Jon Snow/Original Female Character(s), Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenseerofGondor/gifts">GreenseerofGondor</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The woman who had come to attend Bran Stark in his chambers in King’s Landing was new. That wasn’t particularly unusual; the work in tending him was quite physical and it was often swapped around between the maids depending on who felt up to it on any particular day. </p>
<p>What was unusual was the level of competence she showed in being able to quickly and efficiently move him from his chair to his bed and to help him strip down to his smallclothes. Her hands were gentle and quite skilled as she sponged him down, even knowing enough to check that there was no sign of pressure sores on his back, buttocks or legs and to massage his skin and muscles to ensure that the blood that often pooled in his legs and feet was moved and circulated. </p>
<p>“You’re very good at this,” said Bran, mildly, as she turned him back over.</p>
<p>“Yes, my Lord,” she said.</p>
<p>“Have you done it before?”</p>
<p>“Yes, my Lord.”</p>
<p>“With the dead?”</p>
<p>There was a small silence, then the woman said, “Yes, my Lord. I’ve been trained to prepare the dead for… certain ceremonies.”</p>
<p>Bran sighed, and used the rope dangling above his bed to haul himself upright. “I know it’s you, Arya. You might as well take off the face.”</p>
<p>The woman looked at him, without expression. “Yes, my Lord,” she said and then reached into her hairline and took off the face she’d been wearing. </p>
<p>“That is… very strange to see,” said Bran.</p>
<p>Arya raised an eyebrow at him. “Says the Three-Eyed Raven,” and then a smile blossomed on her face, matched by Bran and she flung herself into his arms. “It’s good to see you,” she said and laughed.</p>
<p>“It’s wonderful to see you,” replied Bran. “It’s been so long. Have you been in Braavos the whole time?” He gestured and she handed him his shirt, which he slipped on as she talked.</p>
<p>“Not Braavos. Essos, yes,” replied Arya. “I needed time to… sort things out.”</p>
<p>“To find Arya Stark inside Lady Death?” Bran asked and Arya hit him lightly on the shoulder.</p>
<p>“Could you try not being the enigmatic Master of Whispers who knows everything and try being my little brother for a while?” she asked and Bran’s answering grin was full of mischief. </p>
<p>“I’ll do my best,” he said, almost contritely. </p>
<p>“So what’s it like being Master of Whispers? Is Davos a good King?” Arya asked. </p>
<p>“He’s exactly the King the South needs,” replied Bran. “He’s a good man and he’s working hard to repair all the damage that Cersei and the war and Rhaegal caused. The Lords in the South respect him and he maintains good relationships with the other kingdoms. Though, perhaps, mostly queendoms. I make sure that anyone thinking of causing difficulties with that… doesn’t. It keeps me occupied. And the warm weather here is good for me.”</p>
<p>“And…” Arya stopped. It took what felt like a very long time before she said, “Gendry?”</p>
<p>“He married,” said Bran, softly. “A woman from the Riverlands - Sarai. It was to cement an alliance but they grew to love each other.” He paused for a long moment. “She died in childbirth. He’s at Storm’s End, with his son. He hasn’t remarried.</p>
<p>“Ah,” said Arya and nothing else. They sat in silence for a long time and finally Arya said, “The first time I left the House of Black and White, I was angry. I thought Jaqen was wrong. I thought Arya Stark’s vengeance was more important than anything. Even staying alive. Until Daenerys… until she thought… It was too much, Bran. Being Lady Death. Being the one who killed the Night King. Being a threat too great to bear.” She traced her fingers across his linens, an aimless pattern. “I thought Jaqen wanted me to be no-one so they could shape me into whatever they wanted. But the Faceless Men didn’t. They wanted me to be no-one because when you are someone, death can become your only purpose. The only way you… interact with other people. The only thing you feel the need for.” She trailed off into silence.</p>
<p>“And now?” Bran asked, eventually. </p>
<p>“I thought death was a punishment I dealt out to people who had done me harm.” Arya sighed. “It took me a very long time, but I finally learned that death is also a gift. A gift of peace. A gift of easing. I learned that I could choose. I could choose… not to avenge hurts done to me. The first time I was there, they tried to teach me through tasks. I didn’t learn very well. I learned how to kill people; I didn’t learn very well how not to <em> want </em>to kill people. The second time… I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone in my life as much as I’ve talked to Jaqen H’ghar. If that’s his name. If it was the same person every time. Anyway…” she waved the thought away impatiently with her hand. “This time I learned. I learned I could choose not to bestow the gift. If I didn’t need to kill others for my own sake, then I didn’t need to kill others for them. I could say no if they asked. And I could say yes.” Arya sighed. “I finally learned to stop needing vengeance. It’s the only thing I wanted since I was twelve years old, Bran.” She grimaced, looked away from him. “Before that, probably. Gods, but Sansa was lucky I didn’t know how to stick someone with a dagger when I was eight or she might never have survived long enough to go to King’s Landing.”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure you were quite that wild, Arya,” said Bran mildly and Arya shrugged.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” she said. “I wouldn’t bet you a dragon on it.”</p>
<p>“So you came home,” said Bran, ignoring Arya’s comment. “But you still wear faces.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say I’d stopped killing people, Bran,” said Arya, rolling her eyes at him. “I said I didn’t <em>need</em> to. I’m just… extremely selective these days.”</p>
<p>“Did you come back to Westeros to kill someone?” Bran asked.</p>
<p>“You know I didn’t,” replied Arya. “O Three-Eyed Raven.”</p>
<p>Bran gave one of those enigmatic smiles that Arya had found so annoying before she left for Essos; he was fairly certain that she didn’t find it any less annoying now. Which may have been at least part of the reason he did it (not that he would ever admit that). “You came back to Westeros because you’ve already killed someone,” he said. </p>
<p>“I have,” replied Arya and settled herself down on the bed, next to Bran’s legs. “Kinvara, High Priestess of the Red Temple of Volantis, First Servant of R’hllor, Lord of Light, needed a man killed. Without it being obvious that it was the Red Temple that killed him. He was rich enough and powerful enough and his crimes against… children, mostly, were enough to persuade me to render her a service. In return, she offered me… assistance.”</p>
<p>“What sort of assistance?” asked Bran. He was the Three-Eyed Raven, but where R’hllor was invoked, his visions tended to become less… certain than they might otherwise be. </p>
<p>“There must always be a Stark in Winterfell,” replied Arya. “I spent my childhood killing the people who had taken Winterfell away from us, but now there is a Stark again in Winterfell.”</p>
<p>“Queen Sansa,” replied Bran.</p>
<p>“<em>Queen</em> Sansa,” said Arya. “Of course, <em>Queen</em> Sansa. Beloved Queen in the North for these, what, last ten years or so. And her Consort and husband, Lord Theon Greyjoy. And no children.”</p>
<p>Bran inclined his head. “You know Theon can’t father children,” he said. “Not after what Ramsay did to him.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know that,” said Arya. “It’s not like Theon and Sansa tell people about it. Kinvara told me. And no, I don’t know how she knows. Presumably the Lord of Light told her.”</p>
<p>“Presumably,” said Bran. </p>
<p>“I’m tired of death,” said Arya, quietly. “I wanted life. I wanted… I wanted to know that there would be a Stark in Winterfell again. After Sansa. I… I can’t have children, Bran. The Waif took that away from me and I don’t think I want it back. You can’t have children, not unless you stop being the Raven, let alone,” Arya waved vaguely at his legs, “and I don’t think you would want that.” Bran shook his head and Arya sighed. “Jon is… being Jon. Beyond the Wall. Feeling guilty. Brooding. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to find anyone that he wants to… Not after Ygritte and Daenerys. And Sansa has Theon.”</p>
<p>“She does,” said Bran. </p>
<p>“She always wanted to have children, Bran. Even when she was just a girl. I thought maybe she might consider setting Theon aside. Once Kinvara told me about… why there was no chance they would have children. It would be a straightforward way to solve the problem, at least. Less complicated than the other options Kinvara offered.” Arya looked down at her fingers, idly tracing patterns again. “I wore one of my faces, went to Winterfell, watched them together.”</p>
<p>“I… wouldn’t mention that to Sansa, if I were you,” said Bran, even more mildly than usual. </p>
<p>“I don’t plan to,” replied Arya. “I’m fairly certain she’d pull out all of my hair.” Arya leaned back against the bedpost. “She’ll never set Theon aside. Ever. I can’t imagine that she would even consider an… arrangement. To have a child to another man and say that it is Theon’s. There is no-one for Sansa but Theon. No-one for Theon but Sansa.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Bran. “Since the day they flew from the high walls of Winterfell, hand in hand. There’s a song about it.”</p>
<p>“I <em>know</em> !” Arya rolled her eyes. “Seven bloody hells, Bran. It’s <em>Theon</em>. Gods, he wanted songs about winning wars and being a great hero and sticking people with arrows and he ends up with love ballads written about him and bloody <em>Sansa!</em>”</p>
<p>“There are a couple about him being the Hero of the Godswood, too,” said Bran. “Alongside the ones about Lady Death and the Long Night.”</p>
<p>Arya grimaced at Bran. “He’s embarrassed by those ones, you know. And he pretends to be embarrassed when they play The High Walls but he and Sansa make…” Arya waved her hand about, “<em>googly eyes</em> at each other.”</p>
<p>“Have you always been this romantic, Arya,” asked Bran, “or have you grown as a person?”</p>
<p>Arya snorted. “You’re the Three-Eyed Raven, Bran. You’re not supposed to have a sense of humour.”</p>
<p>“Whoever told you that?” said Bran. “Because they’ve been telling you lies.”</p>
<p>“Oh, shut up, Bran,” said Arya, impatiently. “What’s important is the price I set for Kinvara,” said Arya and took a deep breath. “That she would do what was needed to make sure that a child was born to a Stark. She came back on an Ironborn longship with me.” The corner of Arya’s mouth curled up suddenly. “She stayed on Pyke while I went up to Winterfell. Apparently she and Queen Yara are getting on quite well. But she’s agreed that she can do what I want, and she’ll meet us in Winterfell. She needs us to make it work.”</p>
<p>“To make what work?” asked Bran.</p>
<p>“To restore Theon,” said Arya. “To make him whole again.”</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>It had taken Bran some time to persuade Arya, but despite her disdain for what she called fuss and nonsense, even she finally agreed that the pandemonium that would ensue if she and Bran arrived at Winterfell unannounced would be far worse than what Sansa would plan if she knew they were coming. So they had sent the ravens ahead when they were leaving White Harbor, with Lord Manderly happy to provide them with barges to get them safely up the White Knife to the rapids.</p>
<p>Bran couldn’t help the small smile that curled the corner of his mouth when they were met at the rapids by a contingent of men from Winterfell, with swift horses, one bearing a saddle modified for Bran. Arya glared at him heartily but the quiet efficiency of the men and the speed with which they travelled overland meant she didn’t press the point about being able to organise all of this herself. It seemed only a short while before they saw the walls of Winterfell, the Stark banner flying high, beside it, as a courtesy to welcome Bran, the banner of his king, the black-sailed ship on the blue field. It was only when they were closer to the walls that it became clear that the two banners hanging beside the gate were slightly different - not just the Stark direwolf, but direwolf and kraken on a white field, bordered by winter roses and seaweed.</p>
<p>“See what I mean?” Arya said. </p>
<p>“It <em>is</em> part of the song,” said Bran. “Sansa seeing the betrothal banner being carried towards her as she waited for Theon on the high walls, the same walls from which they’d flown together. I’m told young women in Flea Bottom positively swoon at that bit.”</p>
<p>“Gag, more like it,” replied Arya and Bran turned his most enigmatic and annoying smile on her. She glared at him again and then poked her tongue out, quite solemnly. </p>
<p>Then they were at the gates and waiting for them in the courtyard were Queen Sansa, looking resplendent in crown and a silver fur-trimmed gown. Lord Theon was beside her, rather more practically dressed in dark doublet and trousers, a padded vest over the top showing it was likely he had just been summoned from the practice field.</p>
<p>“Master of Whispers,” said Sansa, as Arya swung down from her saddle. “Arya Stark. We welcome your return to Winterfell.” Her voice was formal, but then a smile spread across her face and she was diving across the courtyard to wrap her long-lost little sister in a firm embrace.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>“Honestly, Theon,” said Arya, who hadn’t drunk that much at the small feast Sansa had organised to welcome her and Bran, but definitely more than Theon, who was therefore watching her with an amused look on his face, “don’t you think the banners at the East Gate are a bit… over the top?”</p>
<p>Theon laughed. “Not to your taste are they, Arya?”</p>
<p>Arya rolled her eyes at him. “You’ve been married to Sansa for a long time, Theon? Do you really need them?”</p>
<p>Theon looked down at the tankard that held the small beer he’d been drinking and his face both sobered and softened. “Yara had them made for me,” he said. “For us. We organised a trade in Essos with Missandei and Grey Worm that went… particularly well. So Yara sent them as a gift.” He took a drink from his tankard. “She sent us a raven saying she was on her way for a visit. We’re not quite sure when she’ll get here, so we’re keeping them up for her.”</p>
<p>Arya raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. “You sure?” she asked. “Not just because it reminds you that someone’s written a song about you. You and Sansa.”</p>
<p>Theon went quite still suddenly, his shoulders hunching and Arya wondered if she’d gone too far. Until Theon said, “She did that, too, you know. Commissioned a northern bard and everything. To write The High Walls.”</p>
<p>“<em>Yara</em> did that?” Arya said, surprised. She’d assumed Theon or Sansa had been responsible. </p>
<p>“Yara did that,” confirmed Theon. He drummed a sudden beat of his fingers against the table, his hands without gloves, Arya realised, scars showing, his missing finger obvious. “Winterfell was your home,” he said softly, his words carrying no further than Arya, certainly not to Sansa and Bran, who were carrying on an animated conversation of their own. “It was never mine. I spent half my childhood here as a hostage, trapped within the walls. It was where I made my worst mistake, taking it and letting… Ramsay take me. I was his prisoner here. And then I tried to die here. Sansa is home to me. Winterfell never really quite felt like it was. Too many… bad memories. Until Yara gave us The High Walls.” Theon took a deep breath, still not looking at Arya. “I thought… nothing good could ever come of my time here as Ramsay’s prisoner. But The High Walls made me realise… It let me… it let me see what Winterfell could be to me.” Theon smiled, a small curl of his lips. “So if keeping the banners on the East Gate will make Yara happy, then the banners will stay on the East Gate.”</p>
<p>Arya stared at Theon’s profile. She remembered, as crystal-clear as if it was yesterday, finding him in front of Bran, face-down in the snow, blood leaking from his lips, staining his armour, the great length of wood run through his guts. </p>
<p>“He lives,” Bran had said and Arya, sceptical, had held her dagger to Theon’s lips, saw the faint mist that whitened it. “If you get him to a Maester, he may keep living.”</p>
<p>She had wanted Theon dead for so long. Since he had taken Winterfell. Since he had betrayed Robb. Since she thought he had killed Bran and Rickon. She had wanted him dead.</p>
<p>Bran looked at her then, the Three-Eyed Raven, impassive, and she knew it was her choice. She could take Theon to a Maester and he might live. Or she could not. And he would not. </p>
<p>She wondered sometimes if that had been the moment everything had changed. The moment she had first let vengeance go. When she had found strength from she knew not where, but enough to lift Theon’s near-lifeless body in her arms and stagger into the Great Keep, calling for a Maester. </p>
<p>“Yara’s bringing someone with her,” Arya said, and Theon glanced at her sharply. “Someone coming to meet me. We’ve got something to talk to you about. You and Sansa.” She lifted a hand, forestalled Theon’s questions. “They’ll be here soon. We’ll talk about it then.”</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>Kinvara, High Priestess of the Red Temple of Volantis, was a quite spectacularly beautiful woman and her smile was warm and kind as Queen Yara introduced her honoured guest to Sansa and Theon. Yara’s smile, on the other hand, at the questioning raise of Theon’s eyebrow, was decidedly and entirely smug. </p>
<p>It was quite late in the afternoon, after their guests had freshened up from the journey through the Wolfswood, that the Starks and Greyjoys gathered to meet Kinvara properly. </p>
<p>“It is a pleasure to meet you in your beautiful keep, Queen Sansa,” said Kinvara. The priestesses of the Lord of Light were many things, but they could never be accused of not being diplomatic, when it suited their purposes.</p>
<p>“It is a pleasure to have you travel so far to visit us in the North,” replied Sansa. “Though you took a somewhat unusual route?” </p>
<p>“A courtesy to the King in the South,” replied Kinvara. “I understand that there was… an unfortunate incident with the priestess Melisandre. Her errors did not endear the Lord of Light to King Davos. As my business in Westeros did not concern the South, I chose to travel by the Iron Islands to the North. Queen Yara’s hospitality has been exemplary.”</p>
<p>“I understand my sister was quite interested in discussions on comparative religious practices with you,” said Theon, who had had an entertaining afternoon in Yara’s company. </p>
<p>“Your sister is, indeed, <em>extremely</em> informative on practices that can lead to calling to one’s god,” replied Kinvara and Yara positively beamed with smugness at Theon, who rolled his eyes at her. “However, those are not the religious practices I am here to discuss. I am here because of the religious practices of the Faceless Men.”</p>
<p>Sansa raised an eyebrow and turned to her sister, who took a deep breath. “You know what the Faceless Men do,” she said. “You know what I am. Why I went back to them when Daenerys… I’ve come a long way since then. Since the Freys. Since Littlefinger. I have learned much and I can set my own price when someone comes to me seeking a death.” Arya nodded her head at the serene priestess opposite her. “Kinvara sought a death for someone. An enemy of… the world. Of children, particularly. I took the commission for the Faceless Men but I set a price that Kinvara agreed to. That she would ensure that there would be a Stark in Winterfell.”</p>
<p>There was silence for a short while and then Sansa said, her voice puzzled, “There is a Stark in Winterfell, Arya. I’m here.”</p>
<p>“You are,” said Arya. “But who is there to come after you?” She looked at Theon then. His face had drained of blood at her words, the skin stretched tight across his cheekbones. “I’m sorry for being so blunt, Theon, but everyone in this room knows why you and Sansa haven’t had children. Why you will never have children.”</p>
<p>“I…” said Theon, but no more words came out, his mouth suddenly dry. </p>
<p>Arya hurried onwards then, as if aware this could go badly wrong if Theon or Sansa thought she was suggesting certain other options. “You are Sansa’s, Theon. The only one for her. I know that.”</p>
<p>“We know that,” added Bran, his voice compassionate. </p>
<p>“The only children Sansa would ever have would be your children,” said Arya and Theon couldn’t help but glance over at Sansa as he suddenly felt her hand steal over his, grip it tightly. Sansa’s face was white, except for high spots of colour in her cheeks.</p>
<p>“I accepted a long time ago I wouldn’t have children,” said Sansa, her voice strained. “Believe me, other men have not been averse to suggesting… options, over the last few years. I have no interest in having any man but Theon in my bed. <em>Ever</em>.” She closed her eyes, took a shuddering breath, composed herself. “We are considering adoption. The North is not short of orphans.”</p>
<p>“But if you could have children with Theon?” Arya asked.</p>
<p>“Arya,” asked Theon, his voice strained, feeling his shoulders hunching, his body curling in on itself, on old pains made new again. “Why are you asking this?”</p>
<p>“Not to be cruel, Theon,” Arya assured him. “Because, if you and Sansa agree, then Kinvara has said that she has the power to restore you. To take away the damage that Ramsay did. To make you whole again.”</p>
<p>Theon wondered if this was what it felt like to be struck by lightning, a strange and terrible pain running down his limbs, making them shudder, his breath leaving him in a great gasp, doubling him over in his chair. He felt Sansa’s hand upon his back and the soft murmur asking if he was alright was enough to draw him upright again. “You can’t…” he managed to say but no more.</p>
<p>“I can,” said Kinvara. “There is much magic in the blood of royalty. I can do many things with the blood of even a bastard son of a king. In this room you have two Queens, two Princes, a Princess. All who seek one thing - the continuation of two royal lines. Queen Yara, Prince Bran, Princess Arya have all agreed to offer a portion of blood freely to undertake this work. If Queen Sansa and you agree, and I can harness the blood and the will of all of you, then I can restore you.” Kinvara tilted her head slightly, considered Theon carefully. “And aside from the debt I owe to Arya Stark, I think the Red Temple owes you a debt that requires repaying, Lord Theon.”</p>
<p>“A debt?” asked Sansa, seeming to catch hold of that one statement in the astonishing offer Kinvara had just made. </p>
<p>Kinvara nodded. “Melisandre made… a number of mistakes in Westeros. Among them, I believe, the man who she identified as the Azor Ahai. Stannis Baratheon at first and then the one called Jon Snow. And yet they were not the ones who ended the Night King. Those ones are here in this room; the one who drew the Night King to him; the one who guarded the Three-Eyed Raven and near died at the Night King’s hand in doing it; the one who slew the Night King. R’hllor asked of the Red Temple, of the priestess Melisandre that she do what was needed to save the world from the reign of death. She failed in that charge. Lord Theon’s battle with the Night King, the work he did to slow his advance to the Three-Eyed Raven did more to end the Night King than all of the Red Temple’s efforts. It is a debt we can barely pay.” She inclined her head formally. “I offer my services to Lord Theon for his actions in the Godswood, as much as I offer it as the price the Faceless Men required.”</p>
<p>Theon nodded slowly. “I…” he started, his voice hoarse, stopped, cleared his throat. “You said you could restore me,” he said. “Take away the damage Ramsay did.” Kinvara nodded. “All of the damage,” Theon asked, “or just…” he didn’t finish the question.</p>
<p>“All of the damage,” replied Kinvara softly. “It is all tied together; all of the things he did to you are of one piece. It is hard to explain to one who does not have the Lord of Light work through them. The… spells, as you call them, that we do, make up part of a story. We don’t work to do a single thing; the spell that we do is intended to rewrite parts of a much larger story. Many of the spells need blood, because blood runs through us all, the thread that binds humans together. The things that Ramsay did to you… were almost like a spell. He remade you into something different from what you had once been. The blood he spilled from you as part of that was all part of the one making. Or the one unmaking, perhaps. To restore one part of you will restore all parts of you that he damaged.”</p>
<p>Theon stared down at his hands, sitting in his lap, at the scars that laced across them still, the missing nails, the missing finger, the swollen knuckles, and started as Sansa’s hand appeared, her long fingers lightly touching his. “All the old breaks,” she said softly. “Your feet. Your hands. The winter’s cold wouldn’t pain you so.” </p>
<p>“It is… a lot to think on so… suddenly,” replied Theon. He wanted to say yes, he wanted to say yes with every fibre of his being, but he could not yet make his mouth say the words, frightened that it was some last, vast and ugly trick that Ramsay was somehow playing on him. That he would be given hope and it would be snatched away.</p>
<p>“Little brother,” said Yara and he looked at her, at the fiercely proud expression on her face. “I trust her,” she said.</p>
<p>He stared at Yara for a long moment and then nodded, a sudden jerk of his chin. “Yes,” he said and curled his fingers around Sansa’s. “I want to try.”</p>
<p>“So what do we need to do?” Arya asked.</p>
<p>“Do we need a room? Will this work? We can use the solar? Or the Great Hall?” asked Sansa.</p>
<p>“It is not that straightforward,” replied Kinvara. “The ritual itself does not take much: a little blood from each of you, your presence, words to call upon the Lord of Light’s power. But acts… what was done to Lord Theon is tied to a place. It can only be undone by returning to that place.”</p>
<p>The words made individual sense to Theon, were in a language he understood, in an order that was logical. But he could not make himself understand them. He just knew that his head was filled suddenly with a hollow sound, an echoing darkness.</p>
<p>“Sansa,” he said slowly and she turned to him, her face soft with a mix of horror and a terrible compassion. “What does she mean?”</p>
<p>“Oh Theon,” said Sansa, and then she was kneeling in front of him suddenly, her hands lightly cupping his cheeks, her eyes full of love. “Oh Theon, my love, I’m so sorry. So sorry. But you have to go back to the Dreadfort.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“You never got the chance for revenge against him, Theon. To be whole, to be happy, to be mine; could you think of sweeter vengeance?”</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They broke their fast in the solar, the Great Hall far too large for the small party that tucked into porridge and the dried fruits that Bran had brought up from King’s Landing, knowing how much Sansa loved them.</p><p>It was only after they’d been eating for a small while, making the sort of idle conversation that newly woken people did that Arya finally said, “Is Theon going to join us?”</p><p>“No,” said Sansa, shortly.</p><p>“Is he alright?” Arya asked, subdued. She had thought Theon and Sansa would have been overjoyed at the thought of him being restored. She had not thought that it would… upset him so.</p><p>“Yes,” replied Sansa, and sighed as Arya continued to stare at her dubiously. “We talked quite late into the night. He is tired. He chose not to join us for breakfast.” </p><p>“Are you sure I shouldn’t talk to him?” Arya started. “I could explain…” </p><p>“Leave him be,” said Sansa, firmly, echoed by Yara’s, “Let him alone, Starkling,” and Arya found herself the subject of the steely gaze of two Queens.</p><p>“Sorry,” said Arya, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“I’ll talk to you alone. After breakfast,” said Sansa and the topic was quickly changed to the likelihood of fine weather in the near future.</p><p>Sansa was good to her word and drew Arya into a small and quiet reception room after breakfast was finished. </p><p>“Is Theon… has he changed his mind? Because we have to go to the Dreadfort?”  Arya asked and Sansa sighed.</p><p>“No,” she said. “He knows that what you have offered, what Kinvara offers is… it is a dream come to life for both of us, Arya. For Theon to be whole… to have a chance at… But it is a very large thing you have placed in our laps all of a sudden. What if it goes wrong? What if it doesn’t work? What if… It is hard for Theon to be given hope. He has spent a long time learning to be… learning to live inside a body that was... mutilated. Learning to accept all the things that Ramsay took away from him. Not just… the chance to have children. Much of the damage Ramsay did has never really healed. Theon was always a graceful dancer as a boy and now he stumbles when his foot cramps. His hands… he has to work so hard to keep them supple and to have the strength to wield a sword and draw a longbow. They pain him terribly on winter nights. Some of the other scars… Anyway. To have the chance to be restored… He wants to have hope, Arya, but he learned not to trust in hope. Ramsay damaged more than his body.” </p><p>Arya stared at her sister for a long time, noticing for the first time the dark circles under her eyes, the strained lines around her mouth. “But he married you,” she said finally. “He loves you. Wasn’t that… hopeful? That he could be happy. That he could make you happy.”</p><p>Sansa huffed a laugh. “You have no idea how hard I had to work to get him to agree to marry me, Arya. It nearly broke him. It nearly broke me trying to show him that he was allowed to… to want me. To… imagine a future together. To <em> want </em> a future together.”</p><p>“You asked him to marry you?” Arya asked, astonished. She probably should have realised that before, but it had never occurred to her that Sansa would do that. Not dutiful Sansa who had grown up knowing that the man she married would be chosen for her and had always accepted that fate.</p><p>“Of course I did,” said Sansa. “Theon was never going to do it. ‘He couldn’t give me children’. ‘Everyone in the North hated him’. ‘He was broken’. ‘There were better alliances’.” She settled back into her chair. “Bran told me you think The High Walls is a stupid song. I mean, it’s you, Arya. You were always going to think it was a stupid, silly song. But it’s true. There was no-one else in the world for me after the day Theon and I flew from the walls of Winterfell. When he went back to Pyke, I thought that I would never see him again, that I would just have to accept that he didn’t… that he couldn’t… Why would he ever come back to Winterfell, where Ramsay had done what he had done? But then he came back. He came back to me… to protect me from the dead… I knew then that there was no other man in the world I could ever love as I loved him. It just… took some time to make him understand that. That all those objections he kept raising didn’t matter to me. Fortunately,” said Sansa, and smiled suddenly, “I’m very persuasive.”</p><p>“And you always get what you want,” added Arya. </p><p>Sansa grinned. “You noticed?” she said and laughed as Arya gave an exaggerated nod. </p><p>“What… what if… he came so close to dying, Sans,” said Arya softly, growing serious again. “At the Long Night. What would you have done if… if he had died?” </p><p>“I would have gone on,” said Sansa. “I would be Queen in the North, most likely. I would have been a dutiful Queen and someone would probably have eventually persuaded me of the wisdom of marrying some noble Lord for an alliance. Being Queen, I could have ensured that my third husband at least didn’t bring his knives to bed with me. I would probably have had heirs to the Stark name. Maybe my husband would have been a good and kind man and eventually I might have grown to love him. And I still would not have been one tenth as happy as I am with Theon.”</p><p>“But he was such a <em> shit </em> when we were growing up,” said Arya, the words bursting out of her and then she clamped her mouth shut as she realised how much she might have offended Sansa.</p><p>Instead, Sansa laughed. “Dear gods, yes he was,” she replied. “Theon is very happy to lay out all the ways he was an absolute… one of them, when he was growing up here. He’s changed a great deal since then. We all have. I wasn’t a very nice person when I was growing up either. I was rude and mean and I was arrogant. I treated you and Jon and Theon abominably, thinking I was so much better than all of you. Theon and I both… learned. To be better people. To be worthy of the trust people place in us. I want to be a good Queen. Theon wants to be a good man. We work towards that every day.”</p><p>Arya stood up, paced the room, suddenly restless. “And I come along and… upset everything,” she said. </p><p>“Not in a bad way, Arya,” replied Sansa, her voice reassuring. </p><p>“But still… I didn’t know, Sansa,” said Arya. “That Theon would have to go back to the Dreadfort. I don’t want him to think that… that I wanted to be cruel. Does he think that I meant that? To hurt him?”</p><p>“We haven’t spoken about it, Arya. Not the Dreadfort. Theon didn’t want to speak of it.” </p><p>“He has to, Sansa,” said Arya, turning worried eyes on her sister. “I have to make sure that he knows I didn’t mean to be cruel. You have to talk to him about it.”</p><p>“I will talk to Theon about it when he wants to speak of it,” said Sansa and the steely tones of the Queen in the North rang through her voice, pulling Arya up short.</p><p>“But Sansa,” said Arya and was horrified to hear the whine of her eight year old self, annoyed at her older sister, in her words, stopping her in her tracks.</p><p>“I do not make Theon talk to me about anything,” said Sansa, and her voice softened. “He will talk to me, Arya. In his time, when he is able to. He always does.” She picked a thread off the front of her dress, something for her hands to do. “When he was Ramsay’s,” she said softly, “he was made to do many things. Including tell Ramsay anything and everything, when Ramsay made him. He was stripped of everything, of every choice. Dignity. Privacy. It was all taken away from him. I will not take those things from him again. He will talk to me when he is ready.”</p><p>Arya nodded, slowly. She remembered, suddenly, watching Gendry tied to that seat at Harrenhal, the fierce protectiveness that had risen in her at that moment, the same protective instinct that Sansa so clearly felt towards Theon.</p><p>“May I speak to him?” Arya asked. “I won’t make him talk about anything. Just to let him know I didn’t know about the Dreadfort.”</p><p>Sansa nodded. “Ask the guards on Hunter’s Gate,” she said. “If he hasn’t gone out to the Wolfswood to ride, you’ll find him at the shooting butts. It’s always one or the other when he needs to think things through.”</p><p>*****</p><p>Sansa had been right, of course. Theon hadn’t ridden out, so Arya went to the shooting butts to find herself facing a sight familiar from her childhood; Theon in front of a target, the basket of arrows next to him, the centre of the target full of arrows, Theon’s great longbow drawn and steady as he waited to release.</p><p>She quietly waited for him to loose, but he held and still held. Finally, quietly, he said, “I know you’re there, Arya.”</p><p>“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said, but Theon lowered his bow, put the arrow back into the basket.</p><p>“What do you want, Arya?” he asked, but he didn’t look at Arya, keeping his eyes firmly on the target at the far end of the field.</p><p>Arya suddenly found herself tongue-tied, unable to speak. Finally she said, almost shyly, “I just wanted you to know… I didn’t know about the Dreadfort. I wouldn’t have… with so many people around… if I’d known… I didn’t want you to think I was trying to be cruel.”</p><p>There was silence for a long moment and then Theon gave a short nod, a sharp jerk of his chin. “I know,” he said, finally. “Sansa said…” He stopped, breathed for a moment. “I’m not ungrateful,” he said. “It’s just… a lot.”</p><p>“I know,” said Arya and smiled. “Sansa said. And she’s the smartest person I’ve ever known.”</p><p>“You noticed?” Theon replied and smiled, matched by Arya.</p><p>“I noticed,’ said Arya. “And she married you. So you can’t be all that bad,” and she grinned as Theon actually managed a laugh.</p><p>“That’s all I wanted to say,” said Arya and began to move away, stopping when Theon spoke.</p><p>“Thank you,” he said. “I… thank you,” he repeated and Arya nodded and left him alone as he plucked an arrow back out of the basket.</p><p>*****</p><p>The Winterfell guard would normally have been ready for a trip to the Dreadfort within a day, but accompanying two Queens, a member of King Davos’ royal court and the High Priestess of the Red Temple required slightly more organisation. The Dreadfort still lay empty of a House, but a small contingent of men and women were stationed there to keep the fort from deteriorating and to send ravens if any threat was detected, so a small, swift party was sent ahead to let them know their Queen in the North was visiting and required them to find elsewhere to be for a few days, as well as sufficient funds to ensure they could all manage to do so. Theon, in the end, had to be at his firmest as Master at Arms to stop the entire contingent of guards, far too eager to prove their abilities and their loyalty, from accompanying them. To balance speed and safety, he picked twenty guards to ride with the royal party.</p><p>Sansa had decided on a speedy journey, so the party tended to ride for long hours every day. Between that, the setting up of camp each evening and the exhaustion engendered by the long days of riding, there was little opportunity to converse in depth.</p><p>Instead Sansa watched Theon and watched Yara watch Theon, recognising the lines that drew tight around Yara’s mouth, knew they matched her own. Her concern grew deeper as the circles beneath Theon’s eyes darkened, his cheeks hollowed and the amount he ate grew ever more meagre, but she held her peace and kept their conversations on other topics when Theon showed no inclination to raise the issue of the Dreadfort.</p><p>The dam finally broke on a day when Theon had accompanied the men to shoot some game to supplement their supplies one evening. After the evening meal, enhanced by the addition of rabbit and a couple of pheasants, he had accompanied Sansa as she retired to their tent. He was helping brush out the fall of her hair when he said, “The men think we’re going to the Dreadfort to finally make some decisions on what to do with it.”</p><p>Sansa sighed, let herself be comforted by the fact that his brush-strokes had not faltered as he’d spoken. “It will be helpful. I’ve never even had a chance to see it and it has been empty for so many years. I need to make a decision on it. It’s always been… too hard to talk to you about it. I know it’s not actually why we’re going there, but you know I will take the opportunity to think about it.” She smiled, rueful. “I am always the Queen.”</p><p>“As you should be,” he said. “I will never love you the less for caring as much as you do for the North.”</p><p>She reached up then, captured his hand with hers, rested her cheek against their clasped fingers. “Are you ready to talk about it now?” she asked.</p><p>His hand went very still in hers for a moment, then he softly said, “Yes.”</p><p>They ended up on their camp bed, Sansa running her fingers through Theon’s hair, enjoying the spill of fine bronze curls through her fingers, his head a comforting weight in her lap.</p><p>“Will you be alright?” she asked him. “I know that it cannot be easy on you.”</p><p>“It’s not…” Theon stopped, took a breath, let it go again. “The worst part is that it’s not going back to the place where I was… tortured for so long. It’s thinking… it’s thinking that it’s all a trick somehow. That it can’t be real. That it’s some last vast trick he’s playing on me. To draw me back there with hope and then to laugh and take it away from me and put me back on the cross. I keep thinking… it can’t be real. There’s no way he would let me… escape from what he did to me. To be restored. That he’ll find a way to take it away from me even though I know, <em>I know</em>, he’s been dead for years.”</p><p>Sansa’s fingers didn’t falter in their slow soothing movements through his hair, even as she thought of what to say. Finally, slowly, she said, “I watched him die. I watched his own dogs eat his face. Jon fed what was left of his corpse to the pigs. And you know I still wake screaming in the night and it takes a long time for it not to feel like he’s there, right <em>there</em>, just out of sight, just about to come and… Even after you’ve held me and convinced me that it was just a dream, that he’s dead, I feel like he’s waiting, just out of reach. It takes days to stop feeling like that.”</p><p>“I wish… that you didn’t have to feel like that,” said Theon.</p><p>“He did what he did to us, Theon,” said Sansa, her voice suddenly firm. “He was… there were so many monsters. Sometimes I look back and I think… I think he was the only person who frightened Littlefinger. Ramsay wanted to hurt other people more than he wanted to be alive and that made him impossible to control. And we ended him, Theon. We defeated him.”</p><p>“We did,” said Theon faintly.</p><p>“I told him, before he died that I would erase him. His House, his self, his words. I would erase any sign of him from the earth. If we go to the Dreadfort, if we restore you – I couldn’t erase what he did to you, Theon. But Arya has given us that chance.” Sansa’s voice filled with passion suddenly. “One more thing that he did, gone, erased, ended.” She leaned down, pressed her lips lightly to Theon’s forehead. “You never got the chance for revenge against him, Theon. To be whole, to be happy, to be mine; could you think of sweeter vengeance?”</p><p>Unexpectedly a smile bloomed on Theon’s face. “You are a terribly bloodthirsty wench, you know?” he said. “You would have been a glorious Salt Queen if things had worked out differently.”</p><p>“Well, Yara did say that if I got tired of one Greyjoy…” replied Sansa, pertly and Theon laughed.</p><p>“You are incredibly good for me, you know that?” he said. “Good for me. Good to me.”</p><p>“I know. As you are to me,” replied Sansa. “I will be there, Theon. For every step of this. I will always be there.”</p><p>*****</p><p>The Dreadfort loomed.</p><p>It had loomed in Theon’s mind for the whole journey, the shadow it had cast across his whole life. But it loomed now in front of them, squat and heavy and brooding, its guard towers thrusting high into the sky, the merlons like sharp teeth against the grey of the dull morning.</p><p>It loomed as they waited for the guards to ensure that the fortress was empty of its guardians, then re-assembling Bran’s chair and assisting Bran from his horse and into it. Theon went to take the handles, but flinched back as Yara glared at him and took them instead.</p><p>“Where do we need to go?” Sansa asked Kinvara. “Here or do we need to go inside?”</p><p>The priestess inclined her head, her expression sympathetic as she glanced at Theon. “Lord Theon knows,” she said. “Where Ramsay – did what he did. That’s where we need to go.”</p><p>Theon closed his eyes for a moment, everything inside his head turning to white until he felt the gentle touch of Sansa’s hand on his. “The room with the cross,” he said, hoarsely.</p><p>“The cross is gone,” said Sansa. “Everything is gone. I had all of it burned, years ago.”</p><p>Theon nodded and opened his eyes, seeing nothing.</p><p>“Where is it, little brother?” Yara asked. “None of us have been there. You’ll need to lead us.”</p><p>He would be able to find his way to it until the end of his days. He had been dragged there and harried there and tricked there and led there so often, taken from kennels and courtyards and kitchens and halls whenever Ramsay had felt the need to take away another part of him. Blindly, feeling nothing but the touch of Sansa’s hand in his, he moved forward, through the gate and into the courtyard and turned, past the kennels and then through the door and along, along, along the hallway to the room where he had been remade.</p><p>He was shivering by the time they reached it, a deep trembling that rose from his bones, cold as ice within him, old terror born anew. His scars ached, his hand in Sansa’s suddenly wracked with pain, his steps stumbling as his feet cramped. </p><p>Then her voice was in his ear, a soothing litany, “He’s dead, Theon, he’s not here, I killed him, he’s dead and he’ll never hurt you or me ever again,” and he held to that as she drew him forward into the room, to stand where Kinvara placed him, the place where the cross had been. </p><p>He held to Sansa’s hand as long as he could, as Kinvara moved swiftly from Yara to Bran to Arya, each offering their arm freely, letting Kinvara open their veins and capture the blood that dripped from the end of their fingers until she had near filled the cup she had brought down with her. She came at last to Sansa, who nodded and turned back to Theon. “I’ll be here,” she said. “Where Kinvara needs me. He’s dead, Theon. We’re taking away what he did to you. I’ll be here. All of the time. Watch me. Only me. Remember you aren’t alone. I’m here. Yara’s here. Bran and Arya are here. We’re here for you,” and then her lips trembled against his cheek for a moment and she took her hand from his, gave it to Kinvara, watched the blood drip from the end of her fingers until the cup was filled. Kinvara’s fingers pressed on Sansa’s wrist then, sealed the wound with a soft word or two as she had that of the others. </p><p>Theon’s eyes stayed on Sansa as Kinvara arranged them around the chamber to her satisfaction, a heart, a flame, the shape of R’hllor, him at the centre. Then Kinvara walked to him. “My Lord Theon,” she said, her voice soft with something that may have been pity. “I need you to remove your clothes.” </p><p>He heard Sansa’s soft cry then, cut short. “I can’t…” he breathed. “I haven’t…”</p><p>“I know, my Lord,” replied Kinvara. “I would not ask it of you if it was not necessary. But you must stand naked before the Lord of Light, show that you have given yourself utterly and freely to him for this ceremony. He is not your god and I do not seek to make him your god. But for this time, you must trust him completely. You must place yourself in my hands, do what I ask of you. I must anoint you and for that I need you to remove your clothes.”</p><p>For a moment Theon stared at her, almost unable to comprehend her words but in this room he had learned to obey without question. He reached up, loosened the laces of his jerkin, slipped it off, then untied the top of his undershirt and slid it over his head. </p><p>Yara made a noise then, an angry sound, a growl, as for the first time she saw the extent of the scars that laced across and around his torso, a map of destruction she had caught only the smallest glimpses of, the Flayed Man crosses carved into his arms. From behind Kinvara he heard Arya say suddenly, “Seven fucking hells, Greyjoy, I didn’t know…” but their outrage was lost in Kinvara’s eyes on his. </p><p>“All of your clothes, Lord Theon,” she said softly and he remembered similar words, said equally softly, but full of menace not sympathy. For a moment his will threatened to crumble.</p><p>And then he heard, “Theon,” and his eyes caught Sansa’s as she gazed at him. “He’s dead,” she said. “We can end what he did to you. I’m here.” </p><p>His hands trembled as he unlaced his boots, slipped them off, fumbled with the lacing of his breeches until he could finally undo them, draw them off, ignore Yara’s sharp hiss at the long flayed strips that snaked down his thighs. </p><p>For a moment his hand hovered at his smallclothes, wanting nothing more to flee, to run from this room, this fort, from a past that threatened to overwhelm him, but Sansa’s eyes held his, urging him to hold to his courage and finally he drew down his smallclothes. There was only silence then, as if what they were seeing was too great an outrage for Starks and Greyjoys to articulate. </p><p>Then Kinvara’s hands were touching him lightly, a dab of blood on his forehead, his shoulders, over Ramsay’s carved sigils, his heart, on each hip, then she circled behind him and he felt her dab against his back, on each side of the great mass of whip scars above his buttocks. </p><p>Then she had stepped away and began to speak in a language he didn’t know, that he thought was High Valyrian. He did not pay attention, looking only at Sansa as the chanting grew louder, more impassioned, calling to a god that was not his. His eyes were only drawn away from Sansa when the cup of blood Kinvara held before her burst into flames. </p><p>And the pain began again.</p><p>For a moment the places where she had daubed the blood felt like they, too, were aflame, and then flesh began to remember what had been done to it, to call back to the past when his bones were broken, his flesh was flayed, his nails were torn out. It was there then, inside his head, Ramsay in front of him, blue eyes on his, smiling, as knives bit deep and flesh split asunder, each scar recalling how it was made as it reknit itself, remade itself into clean flesh. </p><p>Theon had learned not to scream when he was Ramsay’s, because it had bored the Master. But he had learned to beg, and he heard his voice in his ears again, a babbling stream begging the Master not to, to stop, to end it, to cut his finger off, to take off the screws and pull the knives from under his skin, to end it, to end it and then Theon was there in the night he could never think of, the night where his manhood had been taken, a night of pain beyond imagining and he was there and all he could hear was his own voice in his ears begging and calling only for, “Mercy, mercy, let there be mercy,” and knowing that mercy would never be granted to him. </p><p>****</p><p>Sansa handed him his clothes, her hands touching him lightly, shoulders, cheeks, nothing that felt like a restraint, nothing that held him. </p><p>His hands shook like leaves as he dragged on his clothes, over skin smooth and mostly clean of scars, over a body that was whole again. He paid no attention to any of it, wanting only to flee. To flee from the past that had been made present again, to flee from the pain that he had suffered again, to flee from the memory of Ramsay Bolton and what had been done to him here. </p><p>“Theon,” said Sansa, as he drew on his jerkin. “Don’t kill your horse. We will catch up with you. I’ll make sure the guards don’t chase you. I know you need to go. Just don’t kill your horse.”</p><p>And then he was running, running down the halls of the Dreadfort and out into the sunlight, away from the ghost of Ramsay Bolton which snapped and sniggered at his heels as he fled. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ah, Theon. I can never let it be easy. (But that’s because I believe firmly that magic shouldn’t be easy, because otherwise you would do it all the time, which would make Westeros and Essos very, very different places.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He rode through the woods like Ramsay Bolton himself was on his heels, hounds and guards and even Myranda galloping close behind him, intent on capturing him again, dragging him back.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Don’t kill your horse.”</p><p>He rode through the woods like Ramsay Bolton himself was on his heels, hounds and guards and even Myranda galloping close behind him, intent on capturing him again, dragging him back. </p><p>“Don’t kill your horse.”</p><p>Somewhere in the woods, further than he had wanted, but not as far as he wished, Theon Greyjoy managed to wrestle himself under control, wrestle his horse back from his mad, wild flight through the trees until it slowed and finally stopped beneath him. Its flanks were heaving wildly, sweat dripping from its belly, its legs splayed out to keep it upright as it struggled for breath. </p><p>“Don’t kill your horse.”</p><p>It was all Sansa had asked of him.</p><p>Then Theon was down beside his horse, his knees in the dirt, its reins looped around his wrist and he vomited, over and over, until nothing came from his mouth except bile and spit, tears spilling from his eyes, dripping from the end of his nose into the leaf litter beneath him. </p><p>Finally, eventually, he levered himself upright. He turned back to his horse, leaned against its shoulder, his face pressed into its mane, unable to tell who was trembling the harder. It took a long time before he could trust his legs to hold him up, could lead the horse until it seemed near-recovered from the wild flight through the forest. He found a stream, and both he and his horse drank, the horse’s great desperate gulps quickly settling into something far more normal. </p><p>Theon mounted it again after that, let it walk sedately until he found a rocky outcrop he could climb up to look over the trees and find the road to Winterfell not far away. His flight had been near-blind but he had known enough to head towards home. It was only a short ride back to the cart-track that led through the woods and it didn’t take him long to find a place that would suit as a camp. There was enough equipment in his saddlebags that, by the time the advance guards found him, his horse was groomed and hobbled and grazing peacefully and he had a small fire lit, needing its warmth to counteract the deep shivering that still racked him.</p><p>Some of the guards headed back to find the rest of the party and those remaining began to set up a camp around him. Their respect for Theon meant they did it quietly and efficiently when he barely responded to their questions.</p><p>It didn’t take much longer for the rest of the party to arrive and Theon stood as Sansa rode up to him, swung down from her horse. She reached out her arms and suddenly he was inside the circle of them, his forehead resting against hers.</p><p>“I didn’t kill my horse,” he said softly and Sansa gasped and then began to weep, holding him tight against her. There was a strange discomfited sense in the guards around them, who suddenly began to bustle and set up tents and sort out horses, taking themselves discreetly out of earshot. The Queen in the North was known for her steely poise; they were not at all ready to see her weeping. </p><p>It took time but finally Sansa collected herself, pressed her lips against Theon’s for a moment, then stepped back from him, wiping her eyes. He curled his hand around hers as Yara stepped forward, lifted up his other hand, his right hand. With a look of wonder on her face she wrapped her fingers between his, rolling her hand over to watch the flex and grip of all five fingers against hers. “It worked,” she said and Theon nodded. “All of it?” she asked and Theon looked aside, nodded. “Needed a piss, then, little brother?” she said and at his nod, the flush that rose in his cheeks, she laughed suddenly and gave him a rough hug. </p><p>When she stepped aside, Kinvara was behind her. “Lord Theon,” she said. “I am pleased that you are restored. I am sorry that you had to feel what you felt during the ritual. I thought that it was perhaps best if you were not aware of what would happen.” </p><p>Theon could barely look at the priestess but he nodded. “I…” he started, hoarsely and stopped and cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I could have gone through with it… if I had known.”</p><p>“There is a reason it is a ritual little-performed,” said Kinvara. “Men have been known to lose their sanity. Many men, in fact. It takes great strength of character to survive such matters a second time.” She tilted her head, her dark beauty enhanced by the green woods behind her. “I am pleased that I assessed your character well, Lord Theon. I must warn you that you will tire easily for some days. The spell draws upon your own reserves to re-make you. You will need to eat a great deal and sleep a great deal during our travels.” </p><p>She smiled then and stepped back and Arya was standing in front of him. The look she gave Theon was almost shy and decidedly conflicted. “I didn’t know,” she said. “About the Dreadfort or the clothes or what… what he had done to you. I definitely didn’t know about the sanity.” She gave a small shrug. “I thought I was driving a hard bargain with the Temple. I’m starting to think the Faceless Men aren’t the only ones that set prices that cut both ways.” </p><p>“It’s probably a useful thing to know,” Theon said, and even managed a shaky smile at Arya’s answering grimace. “I’m still Theon. This time.” He paused, flexed his right hand, all five fingers, again. “Thank you,” he said and suddenly Arya’s arms were wrapped around his waist, just for a moment until she stepped back.</p><p>“Are you still going to be good to my sister? We didn’t restore you back to being Theon the shit, did we?” Arya’s frown danced on the edge of being a glower at him.</p><p>“No,” he said, softly. “I promise <em> that </em> Theon hasn’t been restored.”</p><p>“He’s a good man, Arya,” said Bran from where he sat on his horse still, waiting for the guards to finish re-setting up his chair. Theon looked up at the Three-Eyed Raven, remembering the last time Bran had said that to him. He nodded up at Bran, who tilted his head in acknowledgement.</p><p>Then Sansa said, “You’re sure you’re alright?” and her eyes were worried as they looked at him.</p><p>Theon grimaced. “He was… there. All of it was… there. In my head, like it’s always in my head, but it wasn’t just in my head. I felt everything… again…” He trailed off.</p><p>“I know,” said Sansa. “I heard what you were… asking of him. I’m sorry.” She brushed a curl off his forehead. “I don’t know if I could have gone through what he did to me again. Not even for…”</p><p>“You’ll be alright, Theon,” said Yara suddenly as Sansa faltered, and her dark eyes were filled with unexpected compassion. “You survived it once. You’ll survive it again. You’re Ironborn. Surviving is what we do.”</p><p>“You will need time to heal from the ritual. To eat. To sleep.” Kinvara looked at him, with a certain professional curiosity on her face. “You will not dream, Lord Theon. Not for some time. Your sleep shall be very deep.”</p><p>Theon nodded slowly and then started as his stomach rumbled loudly and a smile blossomed on Kinvara’s face. “You will need to eat a great deal,” she said and Theon realised he was suddenly and unexpectedly ravenous.</p><p>*****</p><p>Kinvara had been correct about Theon’s need to eat and sleep during their travels home. He was alright during the day, when they were riding, other than eating at least twice as much at each meal as he had on the way to Dreadfort. But once he had eaten his evening meal, he would retire to the tent immediately and fall into a deep sleep, barely even moving before it was time to wake in the morning. </p><p>At first Sansa had been concerned but in time she began to appreciate the restorative effect it seemed to be having on him. There were no dreams of Ramsay or what he had done and slowly Theon’s cheeks lost their gauntness and the dark hollows below his eyes began to disappear.</p><p>It was after he had gone to bed one night and Sansa continued to pick at the remains of her meal at the fire that Kinvara approached her. “Lord Theon,” said Kinvara, settling down in the camp chair Sansa graciously gestured at. “He is looking well.”</p><p>Sansa thought for a moment, continuing to pick at what was on her plate. “He is,” she said, finally, setting her plate aside. “More than well. Healthy.” Kinvara tilted her head and Sansa sighed. “Theon is… when we… belonged to Ramsay, Theon was… He was starved. Thin. Wretched. He looked broken. He <em> was </em> broken. When he came back to Winterfell from Pyke, he was,” Sansa smiled suddenly at her hands, “he was the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. I think so still and all of the training that he does has meant he is strong and muscular and lean. But I can see that he is… healthier again. Like he is finally, truly well, as he hasn’t been for many, many years. Even if he does spend all his time eating and sleeping.”</p><p>Kinvara smiled. “That will pass soon, your Grace,” she said. “I saw the many scars that Lord Theon had. He must have been with this Ramsay for many years. There is damage that can be done to the heart, to the stomach, to the way blood circulates, beyond what was done to his flesh. That damage would also be healed.”</p><p>Sansa nodded in understanding. “There’s still the scars where the Night King… Theon told me he’s still missing some teeth at the back. They were broken by Ramsay and Theon had them removed some time after we escaped. They haven’t grown back.”</p><p>“The ritual restores only the damage that was directly connected to the place and the person,” said Kinvara. “If the teeth were removed afterwards by others they would not be restored.”</p><p>“That’s what we thought,” said Sansa. She sighed. “I am very grateful to you, High Priestess,” she said, “but I confess that I find myself angry you did not think to tell me that my husband may lose his sanity. That he would have to face that pain again.”</p><p>Kinvara nodded. “Believe me, your Grace, Yara Greyjoy has expressed enough anger about my decisions in that regard to do for both of you.” She smiled, ruefully. “As High Priestess I’m not used to being sworn about and yelled at quite as much as has happened over the last few days. She has been kind enough to take me out of earshot of everyone else before she does it. I do have a certain reputation to uphold, after all, and being cursed at by the Ironborn Queen in full flow would rather dent that reputation.” She held up her hand as Sansa went to speak. “Queen Yara is as justified in her anger as you are. I offer only this in my defence; I had to determine whether Lord Theon’s sanity would be damaged by the ritual. I am High Priestess to the Lord of Light. I have spent many years assessing the characters of the adherents of my religion, of those who may support us and those who may oppose us. I consulted the Lord of Light and I watched Lord Theon closely. My prayers and my own thoughts led me to believe both that Lord Theon may well not be able to undertake the ritual if he knew what it entailed, and that he would not be driven mad by it. Your husband has great strength of character, Queen Sansa, far greater than he himself assesses. I considered my course of action the most advisable to enable me to pay the price set by Arya.” </p><p>Sansa considered the priestess for some time and finally said, “Well, it’s likely to take a while for me to stop being angry about it. I suspect Yara and I have the need all Queens have – we want to know everything we can before we make a decision. But it is obvious that you made the correct choice.” She sighed. “I just wish you had told me beforehand.”</p><p>“Then you would have carried that burden until we reached the Dreadfort,” said Kinvara. “And the burden now of Lord Theon knowing that you knew what was to happen to him and did not tell him. That could have proved remarkably hurtful. I know it is not what you prefer, but sometimes it is best not to know what is coming.” Kinvara’s eyes were almost soft as she looked at Sansa across the fire. “You, more than anyone, understand the value of a leap taken only on faith, your Grace.”</p><p>Sansa’s lips curled at the corners then, and she suddenly felt an easing, a letting go of the kernel of anger that had rubbed hard against the gratitude she knew she should feel for Kinvara. “I can see,” and her smile was clearly one that acknowledged Kinvara as her equal, “how you achieved the position of High Priestess. You are very good.”</p><p>“One of the best,” responded Kinvara gravely, and gave Sansa an unexpectedly impish grin.</p><p>***** </p><p>There had been a flurry of activity when the party had arrived back at Winterfell, a swirl of servants and guards and reports. Sansa had managed to snatch enough time to firmly order Theon to see the Maester as soon as he was able to do so and Yara had bundled him off to the Maester’s Tower as soon as he had a moment of freedom. </p><p>The Maester had examined him closely, astonished and curious, asking Theon a barrage of questions he tried hard to avoid answering. Theon finally escaped after confirming how well he was feeling and even that his ravenous hunger and overwhelming need to sleep had finally started to abate in the last few days, by begging off further questions with a reminder that he had duties to attend to. </p><p>Yara was leaning against the wall outside the door to the Maester’s examination chamber when Theon emerged, waiting for him.</p><p>“Well?” she asked. </p><p>“I hate it,” said Theon, shaking off the feeling he always got when he visited the Maester, a mixture of shame and fear that he hadn’t been able to overcome since his time as a prisoner in the Dreadfort.</p><p>Yara rolled her eyes at him. “Are you well?” she asked, pointedly. </p><p>Theon shrugged, uncomfortable. “Apparently so,” he said. “He prodded me enough.”</p><p>“Everything in full working order?” Yara raised an eyebrow.</p><p>Theon flushed, but knew there was no point dissembling to Yara, who would never let him get away with it. “Everything,” he confirmed.</p><p>“Then go fuck your wife, Theon,” she said and grinned at him when he stared at her. “She’s been waiting enough years. I know she’s the Queen, but she doesn’t have to answer to everyone in Winterfell. Go find her.”</p><p>The infuriating thing about Yara, thought Theon, was that she was incredibly crude and almost always right. He glared at her for a moment as her grin grew wider and decided just to live with the fact she’d ordered him to Sansa’s bed and that he was going to obey her.</p><p>He found Sansa in one of the meeting rooms, discussing matters with the seneschal. She looked very involved and had that vaguely concerned look she tended to when the problems were small but being very earnestly explained. But she looked at him over the man’s head and suddenly Theon couldn’t help the flush that rose in his cheeks, the longing in his eyes. Sansa stared at him for a moment and then, with a few well chosen words bundled the man out of the room. Then her hand was in Theon’s and they were making their way to their chambers, Theon’s heart thudding loudly in his ears.</p><p>He stopped her in the antechamber, abruptly. “Sansa,” he said. “We need to talk. First.”</p><p>“We do?” Sansa tilted her head at him and he actually gulped and then sat down in a chair, his head in his hands. </p><p>“I should be… I know I should be… Drowned God, I want to… so much. But… I went back there. To the night when… when Ramsay gelded me. I was there, in my head. It wasn’t just him, Sans. There was Myranda and Violet, before.” He raised his head up, looked at Sansa. “It was the last time I touched a woman when I was whole. And I’m not sure if… if we try that… that it won’t come back again. And I don’t want to frighten you if I can’t… If I fall back there.”</p><p>Sansa looked down at him, her face soft. “Theon. It’s been a long time for me since Ramsay did those things to me. Many years. Being in bed with you holds no terrors for me. You were so gentle with me so many times when my memories became too much. I can do the same for you. I would understand if you don’t want to…”</p><p>“Oh, I want to,” said Theon, eagerly. “Dear gods, I want to. It’s like… it’s like when I was thirteen. Gods, I can barely sneeze without spilling into my breeches. That first piss after the Dreadfort - it was better than my first fuck. I want to do everything and I’m frightened it will be too much and that the night will come back and… oh gods, Sansa, I’m a fucking mess.”</p><p>“It’s alright, Theon,” said Sansa, softly. “It is all alright. Whatever you need to do, however long it takes, it will be alright. If you spill in your breeches or on my hand, then so be it. If you have to stop, then so be it. I just want to be with you.” She leaned forward and down then, her mouth slotting over his, and suddenly he felt his lips curl upwards under hers, smiling into the kiss.</p><p>“You are so good for me” he whispered when she took her mouth from his and she nodded solemnly. </p><p>“Yes, I am,” she said and then, her face very serious, she settled herself onto his lap, straddling his thighs. The chair creaked beneath them, but then Sansa leaned forward and her lips ghosted over Theon’s mouth, his cheek, up to his ear and down onto his neck. Her fingers entwined in his hair and suddenly his mouth was on her neck, trailing down it. </p><p>Then Sansa laughed suddenly and lifted her mouth up, leaned back to smile at him. “Well, hello,” she said and reached her hand down between them, to stroke the front of his breeches that were suddenly tight, his laces straining in a way he hadn’t felt for so many years. </p><p>Methodically, calmly, Sansa reached down, lifted up her skirts so that they bunched around her waist. She gripped Theon’s wrist then, slid his hand between them and over her smallclothes and nodded at him when he raised an eyebrow in question. He slid them aside then, slipped his fingers forward into her soft folds and he groaned as he found them already wet. ”You know, Theon,” she said calmly, as his fingers slipped inside of her, over her pearl, “we can talk about all the things you are worried about sometime soon. But right now, I just want you inside me.”</p><p>“Gods, Sansa,” he groaned and then groaned again as he groped helplessly with his other hand, trying to find the laces of his breeches. “This is so fucking awkward,” he managed and then she laughed and moved slightly and he found his laces at last. She helped him by shifting her weight, though the movement of her warm wet centre against his hand did not assist his concentration on his laces in the slightest. But at last he managed to undo everything and shift enough that his cock could spring out from beneath both smallclothes and breeches.</p><p>The look of concentration on Sansa’s face made him smile as, for the first time, she looked at his cock. No longer the wooden or leather ones they had made do with, he worried she would be frightened, but then she bit her lower lip and he smiled. She reached down then, slipped her hand around it. “Mmmm,” she crooned. “So soft. Like silk,” and her fingers danced along the length of him.</p><p>“Sansa,” he whispered and she locked her eyes on his and then lifted herself and her skirts up slightly, tilted her hips until his cock was positioned at her slick entrance. “Gods, Sansa,” he breathed as she lowered herself then, her warm wetness enfolding him until he was completely sheathed inside her.</p><p>It felt like they both stopped breathing then, silent, their eyes locked, as he felt the quiet pulse of her walls as she tested out the feeling of him being inside her, as he felt again a sensation that he thought had been forever lost to him. Then slowly, carefully, Sansa rocked her hips, barely moving them, a quiet roll that caused a delicious friction in his cock. He wanted to savour it, to savour her, but there was no time; it took only a few movements and suddenly Theon was crying out, his hips shuddering as he spilled, an utterly shattering release of pressure inside of her.</p><p>It took him a few moments to get his breath back, to open his eyes to find Sansa watching him with a small, contented smile on her face. “I’ll get better at it,” said Theon and Sansa’s head tilted back as she laughed.</p><p>“If we’re keeping count of peaks, Theon, I don’t think the count is in any way even,” said Sansa. “I think I can safely say I owe you a few.” Her expression changed then, became one of wonder. “And now we have all the time we need.”</p><p>“We do,” said Theon, with equal wonder and then he laughed suddenly. “I told you it was like I was thirteen,” he said. She tilted her head, looked at him in puzzlement and then laughed as his cock, which had grown soft inside of her, suddenly twitched again. </p><p>“Do you think we should try for the bed this time?” she asked and then squeaked as Theon managed to buck his hips upward, push his arm back against the wall, and surge to his feet. Sansa wrapped her legs and arms around him as he carried her to the bedchamber, and laughed as he slipped out of her, deposited her on her feet next to the bed. </p><p>“I want to do it with our clothes off this time,” he said and then his hands were busying themselves with the laces of her dress even as hers tangled themselves in his jerkin and he tried to kick his boots off. Finally, laughing too hard, they gave up, and released each other, stripped their own clothes off. Naked and laughing and utterly unselfconscious, they fell onto the bed beside each other. Sansa’s hand reached out, trailed down Theon’s chest and torso, now free of all but a few minor scars from training and the great star-shaped mark where the Night King had landed his near fatal blow, the matching one on his back. </p><p>“So lovely,” said Sansa, and then kissed his chest, pressing her lips against places where both remembered scars that now were clean flesh, unmarked. Her mouth drifted down his body, over his stomach, her tongue drawing lines where once the marks of flaying had marred him. And then her mouth was on his cock and Theon gave a great groan as she dropped feather-light kisses along the length of it and then drew gentle curves upon it with her tongue as it grew hard. It was too much, too soon, and he reached down, found her arms, drew her up his body. </p><p>“Ride me,” he said. “I want to watch you. I want to see you and me, where we join. I want to see your quim around my cock.”</p><p>She nodded and then she was sliding her leg over him, positioning herself over him. For a moment she hovered, her hand gently cradling his cock at her entrance, and then she was sliding down, her warmth enveloping him. Theon groaned at the feel of it and then dropped his hands to Sansa’s hips as she shifted knees and hips until she was comfortable. </p><p>“Theon,” she said softly and he looked up at her. “It’s you. Whole. Inside me.”</p><p>“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he said and she smiled. </p><p>“So have I,” she said and then flexed the long muscles of her thighs, lifted her hips, so her quim slipped up over him, hovered over the very tip of him and then lowered again, so he could watch the whole length of his cock slide deep inside of her. </p><p>“Gods, Sansa,” he groaned in his throat and then she repeated the movement, again and again, letting him watch her take him, ride him, enjoy him. Theon thanked the Drowned God that he had peaked so recently, could stop himself from spilling at the mere sight of Sansa riding his cock. He watched the flush begin to rise in her chest and dropped his hand down from her hip, reached forward to stroke her pearl. She hissed, and arched her head back as he pressed his thumb against her. “Peak for me,” he said. “Peak on me,” and she reached her hand down, pushed his hand aside, stroked her own pearl, her expression turning inwards with concentration and then she cried out “oh fuck, oh gods, oh fuck,” and he felt her walls shudder around his cock as she peaked, hard and long.</p><p>“Fucking Drowned God, Sans,” he said as she relaxed and began to lean forward, and he caught her, turned her over underneath him and then was pounding into her, hard and heavy and desperate, worried that he might be hurting her until she growled in his ear, wrapped her legs around his, her hands urging his hips against her harder as he chased down the pressure building in his groin until he caught it, a surging spill of ecstasy that never wanted to end. </p><p>They slumped for some time afterwards, Theon slowly softening and drawing out of Sansa, sliding off her until they lay side by side, only hands touching, both flushed and over-heated. </p><p>“Everyone’s going to know what we were doing,” said Theon, eventually. </p><p>Sansa laughed. “Good,” she said. “Good. So good. It’s probably inappropriate to shout it from the rooftops, isn’t it? Or make some kind of royal proclamation.”</p><p>“Probably,” said Theon and laughed. “But I want to.”</p><p>“So do I,” said Sansa, and curled into his side. “Arya’s going to be insufferably smug, isn’t she?”</p><p>“You think she’s going to be smug?” replied Theon. “Yara’s going to be unbearable.”</p><p>“And yet somehow,” replied Sansa, “we will bear it.”</p><p>“We will,” said Theon and kissed her temple. “Somehow we will.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well, if there’s one way I’ve found to cheer myself up during a global pandemic and economic crisis, it’s writing smutty Theon/Sansa fic :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Theon Greyjoy fled down the halls of Winterfell, Sansa Stark’s screams echoing behind him.</p>
<p>He had outrun the reach of her cries before he found the room he’d been sent to, bursting through the door, eyes wild, face drained of blood.</p>
<p>Yara Greyjoy looked up from the papers she was reading and sighed. “The baby’s coming?” she asked.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theon Greyjoy fled down the halls of Winterfell, Sansa Stark’s screams echoing behind him.</p>
<p> He had outrun the reach of her cries before he found the room he’d been sent to, bursting through the door, eyes wild, face drained of blood. </p>
<p>Yara Greyjoy looked up from the papers she was reading and sighed. “The baby’s coming?” she asked.</p>
<p>Theon nodded. “She’s screaming. Gods, Sansa’s screaming and it’s all my fault. I can’t help her.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Sansa’s screaming, Yara.” </p>
<p>“Drowned God, Theon,” said Yara, sharply. “It’s not then. She’s not screaming because that fucker is anywhere near her. You aren’t helpless to save her.” Yara pushed herself up from her chair, looked annoyed as the heaviness of her own belly meant it was a less than graceful movement. “She’s having your baby. The baby you both want. She’s got the Maester and the midwife and every servant in Winterfell standing by with hot water and warm cloths and sweetened wine in case their Queen needs it.” She reached him, gripped his shoulders, looked for a moment as if she was considering slapping him, but then leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “She’ll be alright, Theon. You’ll both be alright. I can sit here and hold your hand if that’s what you need. Or get someone to bring you wine, if that will help.” </p>
<p>Theon shook his head at that, but reached out his hand, gripped Yara’s tightly as he breathed, slowly calming. “I can’t stay with her,” he said. “The midwife won’t let me and I… don’t think I’d help. I thought I could help but… but I haven’t heard Sansa scream since… since…”</p>
<p>“Then stay with me,” said Yara. “You can try and help me sort out these ship manifests for the next cargo from Naath, for as long as it takes.” </p>
<p>“How exciting,” said Theon, finally back in the present, and even managed a smile as Yara punched his shoulder lightly. </p>
<p>“Don’t say I don’t offer my little brother a good time,” said Yara and then called through the open door to a passing servant to get food and drinks delivered. “I’ll try and keep your mind off what’s happening, anyway.”</p>
<p>“Hmmm,” said Theon, sounding sceptical, fairly certain that his mind wasn’t going to be dragged from what was happening to Sansa in the room down the hallway. But, determined to try, he nodded at Yara. “Is everything well with the heir to the Iron Islands?”</p>
<p>“She’s got some kind of grudge against my right kidney,” replied Yara, easing back down into her chair. “Gives it a good kicking every couple of hours. And I’ve never needed to piss so much in my life. She must be squashing everything in there.”</p>
<p>“Sansa went through the same,” offered Theon. “You’ve only got a couple more months until she comes out.” He sat down in the chair opposite Yara. “Could be a boy, you know.”</p>
<p>“Could be,” said Yara. “Just don’t want people assuming the heir to the Iron Islands has to be a boy.”</p>
<p>“And you’re still not going to say who the father is?” asked Theon, and his smile was almost sly. His attempts to wrangle the information out of Yara had proven fruitless but he was determined to keep trying, if only because annoying Yara was fun.</p>
<p>Yara sighed. “He’s Ironborn, Theon. A captain. Pretty enough to be worth fucking. Smart enough to realise I’d let him father the Greyjoy heir as long as he didn’t think he’d have a place at my side as well. The Old Ways are changing but if some of the older captains started thinking we had a King because I had a husband… She’ll be legitimate. Not like anyone can’t say the Queen didn’t give birth to her, after all. Once she’s out.” Yara winced and shifted in her seat as her kidney was obviously attacked again. </p>
<p>“Makes you wonder why we ever ended up with Kings,” said Theon, settling back into his chair.</p>
<p>“Not enough Ladies who learned how to stick their fucking awful husbands with swords once they proved how useless they were, is my guess,” said Yara and her grin at Theon was positively bloodthirsty. “Look at the Mormont She-Bears – they knew how wield a sword and even the stupidest Lord in the North didn’t think about trying to take Bear Island off its ruling Lady.” </p>
<p>“The bow,” said Theon and Yara raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. “If it’s a girl, Sansa and I agreed. I’ll teach her the bow. And the dagger,” he conceded to Yara. “Sansa will teach her the needle. And how to rule.”</p>
<p>Yara nodded at him, a half-smile on her face. “And give her to me for a while, little brother, and I’ll teach her the sword. And how to sail.”</p>
<p>“Deal,” said Theon. “And if it’s a boy, too,” he added.</p>
<p>“Of course,” said Yara. “Everyone assumes it’ll happen, if it’s a boy.” </p>
<p>“Stupid, really,” said Theon. “With the number of Queens we have…” </p>
<p>“If the Iron Islands can change,” replied Yara, “anywhere can change.”</p>
<p>“Sansa wants more Ladies,” said Theon. “In the North. We had them. Lyanna Mormont. Alys Karstark. They died.” He remembered Alys Karstark. The fear on her face when the noises had come from outside the walls of the Godswood. And the resolute way she’d led her men forward when all that waited for them was death. He had barely spent more than a few hours in her company, but Theon thought he would have liked Alys Karstark.</p>
<p>“Then she’ll find a way to get them,” replied Yara. “It’s Sansa,” she said, when Theon glanced at her. “She finds a way.”</p>
<p>“She does,” he said, and then there was a knock on the door and the servant was bringing in a tray for him and Yara.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>Yara hated admitting it, and generally did her best to ignore it, but her advancing pregnancy had slowed her down. Unlike Sansa, she’d been subject to morning sickness right from the beginning and although that had passed, she now found she could barely manage one tankard of ale before the taste made her ill. She also tired easily now, so she was slumped down in the chair half asleep, muzzily responding to Theon when the knock came at the door. It had been several hours since they’d eaten and night had fallen, but Theon remained restlessly nervous, so he opened the door with alacrity, so much so that the maid, Arlette, who stood behind it, nearly knocked on his face before she started and drew her hand back.</p>
<p>“Lord Theon,” she said. “Queen Sansa is calling for you.” </p>
<p>“Sansa?” asked Theon. “The baby?”</p>
<p>“The baby hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s very close. Her Grace is… she is asking for you, my Lord.”</p>
<p>“But the midwife sent me from the room,” replied Theon, puzzled. “She said I wasn’t to come back until the baby was born.”</p>
<p>“Yes, my Lord,” replied Arlette. “But Mistress Burley is the midwife. Her Grace is the Queen. And her Grace is asking for you.”</p>
<p>“Just go, Theon,” said Yara, hauling herself up in the chair. “Sansa needs you. It’s not an easy business.” </p>
<p>Theon nodded and followed Arlette back down the hallway to their bedchambers. She curtsied and left him at the door and he went into antechamber and stopped at the sound of Sansa’s groans, followed by a short, sharp cry and harsh panting. For a moment everything in him wanted to go back to a time when he had last heard Sansa made such sounds, take him back to Reek and Ramsay and helplessness in the face of Sansa’s pain. But then he heard Sansa say, her voice pleading, “Where’s Theon? I want Theon. You sent Arlette?” and the soothing noises of Mistress Burley. </p>
<p>He never heard Sansa plead, not since Ramsay, not anywhere or anytime but in their own chambers, when the dreams or memories had come and sent her back to that time. Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, didn’t plead. She commanded. She ordered. She proclaimed.</p>
<p>But she was pleading for him now. And Ramsay Bolton and all of his old evils would never stop Theon going to her, when she needed him.</p>
<p>The breath he took before he pushed open the door to the bedchamber was deep, bracing himself against his past, but it was all worth it for the expression on Sansa’s face when she saw him at the door. And then her hand was reaching out, and he wrapped his around it, brushed his lips against her forehead, wet with sweat. </p>
<p>The midwife grabbed his shoulder then, showed him where she had placed a small stool for him to sit on, then pushed him onto it, firmly out of the way of her and the Maester. Then Sansa’s hand gripped his tightly, almost crushing his fingers and she began to pant again. </p>
<p>Theon refused to take his eyes from Sansa’s face, deciding that what was happening below her waist was no business of his. But he left his hand in hers, even when her grip grew painful, and made what he hoped were appropriately encouraging noises when the midwife urged her to push and Sansa obeyed.</p>
<p>Arlette had been right, though, when she said the baby was close to being born and Sansa had only pushed a few times before she suddenly made a different noise, a sound Theon could only think of as a cry of triumphant relief and he heard Mistress Burley say, “Here it is!” and a few seconds later there was a high, sharp cry that drew Theon’s gaze. He was greeted with the sight of a small purple and red bundle in the midwife’s arms and then the midwife urged Sansa to give one last push. Theon had been present at the birth of enough foals and hounds to know it would be for the afterbirth. The midwife and Maester Wolkan bustled around for a few moments while Theon stroked Sansa’s hand and then Mistress Burley presented a much cleaner bundle, now wrapped in a warm swaddling blanket to Sansa. </p>
<p>“Your Grace,” she said and smiled. “A girl. A beautiful girl.” </p>
<p>“She seems very healthy,” added in Maester Wolkan, beaming in an avuncular fashion. “Of course, we need to make sure she doesn’t catch a chill, but the nursery maid will be ready to take her to bathe once she’s had a feed. Ah!” If anything his smile grew even broader as the baby began to cry. “Good healthy lungs.” </p>
<p>Sansa had taken the bundle into her arms and gazed down at the crying face and then smiled up at Theon. “A girl. We made a baby girl,” she said softly and then her expression changed and for the first time in a very long time, Theon saw something like panic on it. “What do I do now?” Sansa asked.</p>
<p>“I’m not the person to ask, Sans,” Theon replied, starting to replicate her panicked look.</p>
<p>“I am,” replied Mistress Burley. Although she’d only been little herself, Sansa had spent enough time with Bran and Rickon as babies to know how to safely hold the baby, but the midwife was able to show her how to encourage the little girl to find the nipple and latch on and start feeding. It took a few goes and the baby grew grizzly and Sansa fretful, but finally the baby latched on firmly and began to feed.</p>
<p>Sansa looked up at Theon and he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face at the sight of her nursing their baby. “She’s beautiful, Sans. Nearly as beautiful as her mother.”</p>
<p>Sansa managed a small laugh. “I think I need to be a lot less sweaty and a lot less sore to feel beautiful, Theon.” Then her face softened. “But thank you. For coming when I needed you.”</p>
<p>“Always,” he said.</p>
<p>“I know,” replied Sansa, then looked down at the baby. “Does she look like a Bryar?” she asked.</p>
<p>“She looks like Queen Bryar Stark, next Queen in the North,” replied Theon, proudly. It had taken them a long time to find names they liked, names that referred to those who had given them the chance to have a child: Bran, Arya and Yara.</p>
<p>“I like the sound of that,” said Sansa softly.</p>
<p>“As do I,” replied Theon.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here for her nameday,” said Arya, looking down at the bundle in her arms, currently very peacefully asleep. “There was a series of storms that delayed me setting out. Why they call it Storm’s End, I guess.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t miss anything interesting,” said Sansa. “I cried a bit. Screamed a fair amount. Sweated quite ridiculously.”</p>
<p>“Except for the sweating, I probably did hear enough of you crying and screaming when I used to get your stupid dolls dirty,” said Arya, smiling slyly at her sister.</p>
<p>“Oh really, Arya Underfoot?” said Sansa, raising an eyebrow and laughing when Arya poked her tongue out in response. “Gods, we were loud when we were children. I don’t know how Mother didn’t go mad trying to stop us from killing each other.”</p>
<p>“Remember that look she used to give Robb and Theon and Jon when they tracked dirt in when they’d been out hunting? I’m fairly certain the fact she could turn the three of them into sheepish housemaids with one glare was how we survived,” replied Arya.</p>
<p>“I practice that look on the northern Lords when they’re being particularly stubborn about things,” said Sansa. “With generally excellent results, I have to say.”</p>
<p>“I never really understood it,” Arya admitted. “But then, I’m a foot shorter than you. It’s harder to intimidate someone when you come up to their waist.”</p>
<p>“You’re Lady Death,” smiled Sansa. “You don’t need to glare at anyone to intimidate. Your reputation precedes you. The woman who killed the dead.”</p>
<p>Arya rolled her eyes. “Like a grumpkin under the bed,” she said.</p>
<p>“At least you’d fit.” Sansa smiled at Arya’s outraged expression. “So how was Storm’s End?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Big. Kind of wet in a storm. Bit gloomy.” Arya shrugged. “Gendry’s trying to liven it up a bit now. Matthos likes plays and mummers and tourneys, so Gendry tries to keep him happy.”</p>
<p>“And how’s Gendry?” Sansa didn’t even attempt to make her question sound idle.</p>
<p>“He’s well,” said Arya. “We talked. A lot.” She looked down at her hands, suddenly tracing random patterns across Bryar’s swaddling blanket. “He needed a Lady once. An heir. A wife to make him one. That’s not me. It will never be me. No matter how many other things about me might change, that will never be who I am.”</p>
<p>“Once?” asked Sansa and Arya glanced up at her sharply. “You said he needed a Lady once.”</p>
<p>“He did,” confirmed Arya. “And he found her in Sarai and he has an heir now in Matthos and… he doesn’t need a Lady as much as he did once. But he needs a friend he can trust with his life and someone who he can talk to about anything and someone who knew him when he was Gendry Waters.” Arya took a deep breath. “And maybe someone who will warm his bed sometimes between her own travels. That he’s promised not to try and keep her from.”</p>
<p>Sansa remembered a time once, long ago, when she would have been horrified by the thought of any noble-born woman sleeping with a man who wasn’t her husband. Many, many things had changed since that time and so she actually clapped her hands in delight and then stopped instantly as Bryar snorted in her sleep. “Good,” she breathed at Arya, who raised a sceptical eyebrow at her.</p>
<p>“I thought you might be horrified,” said Arya, her voice slowly growing louder as Bryar settled back into a deeper sleep in her lap.</p>
<p>“Gods, I was such a simpering, prissy little princess when I was twelve, wasn’t I?” replied Sansa, thinking with a strange fondness of a girl who almost felt like another person altogether. “Septa Mordane would be horrified, of course. But,” Sansa shrugged, “I find the strictures of the Septons not as much to my taste these days. Not after what they did to Margaery. I don’t want you to live without love, Arya. I know you haven’t chosen the path a Stark lady would normally take, but I… I worried that your life in Braavos was… all-consuming. That the Many-Faced God had cut you off from everything but death. I don’t want you to live a life that is anything but the one you have chosen. But I am glad you have given yourself a little space for love. Besides,” Sansa shrugged, “I took Theon to my bed long before I married him. I am many things, but I do try not to be a hypocrite.”</p>
<p>“Which… I mean…” Arya blurted the words and then stumbled over them as she continued. “He didn’t… I didn’t know but before he… was restored…”</p>
<p>Sansa laughed suddenly as she realised what Arya was saying. “Believe me, Arya, much as I enjoy Theon as he is now, what we had before doesn’t pale much by comparison.” She smiled down at her hands. “If anything, I learned to be adventurous and Theon learned to be inventive. Now we just get to be adventurous and inventive in different ways.”</p>
<p>“Sansa!” said Arya, her tone agonised. “I don’t need to know details. I don’t need to know anything really. I’m glad you’re having a good time. Thank you very much for that information and please don’t tell me anything else. Ever again.”</p>
<p>“If it horrifies you that much, then I promise not to fill you in on any details,” said Sansa, grinning. “Though what that boy can do with his mouth…”</p>
<p>“<em>Sansa!</em> You’re my sister. My big sister. And it’s <em>Theon!</em>” said Arya. “I grew up with both of you. I don’t want to know!” She took a breath. “<em>Other than that</em>, how is Theon?”</p>
<p>“He’s well,” said Sansa. “He’s out with the guards at the moment – there’s a boar that’s been causing trouble further north. Causing a lot of damage to holdings. They’re going to try and kill it. And get some game for the feast for Bryar, as well. There’s northern Lords heading in from everywhere. We’ll get some business done while they’re all here, too. Other than that, he’s very well. Hasn’t had to threaten to shoot anyone for at least six months.”</p>
<p>Arya raised an eyebrow at Sansa. “He’s had to threaten to shoot people?” she asked.</p>
<p>Sansa shrugged. “There always has to be someone stupid,” she said. “I sometimes think some of the lesser northern Lords have replaced their brains with root vegetables. When we told them that I was expecting a child, a couple of them decided to question who the father was. I almost felt some sympathy for them, you know. We have been married for a long time and there’d never been any hint of a child – I can see that the question might arise. But to ask it to Theon’s face… He doesn’t get angry very often, you know. But they questioned whether I was lying to all the Lords. Whether they should, as they put it, trust a Queen who fucked around like Cersei Lannister. They were lucky not to be cut down on the spot. Do you remember the old Theon? How he’d come up with some cutting remark that would make you feel an inch tall and like you’d been born in muck?” Sansa asked Arya, who nodded. “It turns out that Theon hasn’t completely gone away. They must have wished they’d never been born by the time he finished with them. And then I stripped them of their titles for questioning me. Which was… quite pleasing.”</p>
<p>“So no-one knows about Theon’s… what we did?” said Arya.</p>
<p>“No,” said Sansa. “There were… rumours about what Ramsay had done to Theon. They were always there, even before we married, but we never confirmed or denied them. The people who repeated them weren’t half the man Theon is now, cock or no, and don’t deserve to know that much about what was done to him. We talked to Maester Wolkan after that incident. He kindly agreed to let a few of the Lords know that he had discovered that Theon’s injury at the hands of the Night King may have affected his ability to father children, that you had escorted Kinvara to consult with the Maester on a treatment which involved the Lord of Light’s power and together they’d determined that the Dreadfort was the most propitious place to invoke those powers. The Kinvara used a healing spell and as a side effect some of Theon’s old injuries, like those to his hands, were healed.” Sansa sighed. “It is half a lie, I know, but such men don’t deserve to know the truth of what was done to Theon.”</p>
<p>“No they don’t,” replied Arya, fiercely.</p>
<p>“Other than that he’s been well. A few stupid things, but we got past them.”</p>
<p>“Stupid things?” asked Arya.</p>
<p>Sansa rolled her eyes. “He had a week-long panic about how would he be able to be faithful to me? After all, as he put it, he’d fucked every kitchen maid who would agree back in the day, so what about if he went back to being that Theon again? What about if a kitchen maid actually tried to seduce him? What about if he gave in? Gods, Arya, I was so patient with him but even I eventually had to give in and yell at him. I pointed out that half a dozen of the kitchen maids and at least two of the guards had been trying to seduce him for years and he hadn’t even noticed. Gods, it was mean of me, but I actually laughed when he finally saw how hard Jorrel was making eyes at him when they were discussing gate assignments.” She smiled fondly. “I love him with all my heart, Arya, but every now and again I think I married an idiot.”</p>
<p>“He’s only an idiot because sometimes he doesn’t trust how much he loves you,” offered Arya. “There’s no-one but you for him. I think that scares him sometimes.”</p>
<p>“I know,” said Sansa. “If he’s going to be an idiot, at least it’s a good thing to be an idiot about. And I can always talk him through it eventually. Even if I have to yell a bit. I think… I think being restored surprises him sometimes. And then he panics that he’ll turn back into the old Theon. I know he won’t and mostly he does, too. Just sometimes… sometimes I think he realises how large a thing it was that Kinvara did for us and he panics.”</p>
<p>“His life has been… very complicated,” replied Arya, whose training at the House of Black and White had obviously included a modicum of diplomacy.</p>
<p>“We’ve all led complicated lives,” said Sansa and then swooped and collected Bryar out of Arya’s arms as the baby woke and began to grizzle. “Are you hungry, little one?” she asked. “I think you are hungry. Arya, would you mind popping down to the kitchen, seeing if you can find Lizelle there? She’s normally near the fire. Tell her Bryar needs nursing.”</p>
<p>“You’ve got a wet nurse?” Arya said, sounding surprised. Catelyn had never had a wet nurse for any of the Stark children. It wasn’t unheard of in the North but it tended to be viewed as a decadent Southern custom for rich Ladies and somewhat looked down upon.</p>
<p>“I can’t make enough to feed her properly,” said Sansa, calmly. “I tried to manage on my own but Bryar wasn’t thriving. She was always hungry, so she was always fretting. I was finally convinced that I had to have a wet nurse for her and its made all the difference. I still feed her as much as I can, but I can only manage a couple of times a day,”</p>
<p>She didn’t tell Arya the other parts of that story. The terrible nights without sleep when Bryar wouldn’t stop crying because she was hungry, Theon and Sansa starting to go mad with lack of sleep. The worry about the fact that Bryar wasn’t gaining weight. Desperately trying to keep feeding her when Sansa knew that there simply wasn’t enough milk for her baby. And finally the night when Sansa had broken down completely, desperately pouring out to Theon her fears that what Ramsay had done to her, the damage written on her breasts in silver scars and now faint marks meant that now she couldn’t even feed her own child. Or worse, that the feel of Bryar’s desperate suckling, the need and ferocity of it, took her back to him, to his ferocity, and stopped her even wanting to feed Bryar. Had stopped her from loving her crying, fretful, hungry baby.</p>
<p>She always remembered Theon’s calmness, in the face of her rising hysteria, her almost desperate hatred for herself, driven by old pains and new fears and nowhere near enough sleep. He had held her through the storm of tears and finally, when she was calm enough to listen, he tucked sweat damp strands of hair off her brow, behind her ear. “Sansa,” he said calmly. “I was a terrible baby. Ask Yara, she’ll tell you. Colicky and fretful and unhappy. The kind of baby everyone wants to strangle. And my mother loved me. Loved me utterly.”</p>
<p>Sansa had stilled then, barely moving, not wanting to break this. Sansa knew, from Yara, that Alannys Harlaw had loved her youngest son deeply, that his loss layered on top of the loss of Rodrik and Maron had broken her. She knew Theon had loved his mother just as much, but he never spoke of her, even now. Theon loved Sansa, but she was still a Stark, and the Starks had torn Theon from his mother’s arms, took him away from her. When she died, he was in Winterfell, far from her and all alone amongst what must, that day, have felt like his enemies. And so he guarded his memories of Alannys close to his heart, kept private even from Sansa.</p>
<p>But he continued on then, “When I was little - maybe six or so, Rodrik and Maron were teasing me, trying to make me cry. They told me I wasn’t really Ironborn because I’d had a wet nurse and a real Ironborn boy wouldn’t need a wet nurse. My mother found me after, hiding in a corner somewhere, pretending I wasn’t crying. And when I told her what Rodrik and Maron said, she told me that she’d had a wet nurse for all of her children. She loved all of her children, so much. But she couldn’t feed us. I’m sure she wanted to, as you want to feed Bryar. But she just couldn’t. Not as much as we needed. It’s not because of Ramsay, Sans. It’s not because you’re a bad mother. It’s not because you don’t love Bryar. You just can’t feed her as much as she needs. In the morning, we’ll talk to the Maester, find a wet nurse for her. For you. You can feed her as much as you can, but you can have a wet nurse, Sansa. It doesn’t make you a failure.” Her stroked her hair gently. “I know you don’t want to believe it, Sans, but you don’t have to be perfect at everything.”</p>
<p>She had curled in on herself then, making herself small, so she could nestle in against his chest, cradled within his arms, soaking his sleeping shirt with silent tears as he stroked her hair. Finally, with a sniff, she raised her head. “I want to be the best mother I can be, Theon.”</p>
<p>“And you are,” he replied. “You’re a wonderful mother, Sansa. This is just a problem that needs to be fixed. We can fix it. And Bryar can sleep in the nursery with the wet nurse and then you can get some sleep and everything will make more sense then.”</p>
<p>Sansa had never expected that it would be Theon who would give her good advice on mothering a fretful, hungry baby, on dealing with her own body that just didn’t want to cooperate with her desperate desire to be the perfect northern mother. But somehow he walked her through their visit to the Maester, to finding a wet nurse in Wintertown, to gently encourage Sansa to hand Bryar over and watch her suckle from another woman, blessed with a positive abundance of milk. It was his acceptance that this was a totally normal thing, not a slight on her ability as a mother, that let Sansa finally accept that Bryar had settled down into a deep and satisfied sleep in the nursery next to Lizelle and to let Theon lead her back to their bedchambers. It felt odd to be curled up next to him so early in the afternoon in their bed, but then Sansa had fallen from exhaustion into an incredibly deep sleep, neither she nor Theon stirring until the next day. And when she went to the nursery first thing and took a happy, sleepy Bryar from Lizelle into her arms, Sansa almost cried at the rush of love for Bryar that suddenly come back, no longer lost beneath layers of fear and desperation and angry sleeplessness.</p>
<p>So Sansa smiled down at Bryar now, chucking her under the chin and cooing to her, as she waited for Arya to return with Lizelle.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>Arya Stark was Lady Death, feared from one end of Westeros to the other as the woman who slew the Night King, feared as one of the Many-Faced God’s adherents in Essos.</p>
<p>And still she made a squeal so high-pitched that Sansa feared for the Glass Gardens for a moment and then flung herself into Jon Snow’s arms as soon as he managed to fully alight from his horse, her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his shoulders and Sansa laughed in memory of Arya Underfoot again. Finally, Arya released Jon, dropping back to her feet and Sansa got the chance to greet her cousin with a one-armed hug. Then Jon looked down at the burden in her other arm, sea-green eyes watching him from beneath a wispy cap of what looked like it might be dark red hair. “Bryar?” he asked and Sansa nodded.</p>
<p>Jon held out his hands, a gentle question in the gesture and Sansa responded by popping the little girl into his arms. “Hello, Princess,” he whispered to her and Bryar burped solemnly in response.</p>
<p>“She shat on me the first time I held her,” said Arya, with the sage tones of an experienced aunt. “Least you just got a burp.”</p>
<p>“Second time you held her,” corrected Sansa gently and then turned her gaze up to Jon’s companion. “Tormund Giantsbane,” she said formally. “Welcome to Winterfell. Again. You are always welcome here.”</p>
<p>The redheaded man nodded at her, somewhat diffidently. Sansa was never quite sure why, but he always seemed at least slightly intimidated by her.</p>
<p>“Where’s Theon?” asked Jon, slightly rocking Bryar in his arms.</p>
<p>“You came in just after Lord Manderly,” replied Sansa. “He’s getting fairly fragile now, so Theon’s making sure he gets to his quarters safely. We did suggest he send Lady Wylla, but he insisted on coming up to meet Bryar. You’ll see him soon enough. You’re almost the last one here and the feast will be starting in a couple of hours.” She smiled suddenly, a flash of genuine pleasure. “I’m so glad you came, Jon. I wasn’t sure you would.” She laughed then. “Though I have to confess that the fact that a raven arrived from Bran just after I sent mine to you asking me to give you his best wishes when you arrived rather relieved me of that doubt.” Her smile grew wistful as she looked at Jon then. “It’s been so long.”</p>
<p>Jon shrugged. “I know. I thought I might keep hiding behind the Wall a bit longer but… well, it’s been over ten years now with only ravens between us all. When you told me about Arya and Bryar… Ten years is long enough. I didn’t bring Ghost,” he aimed that at Arya. “I thought maybe you could come up to the Wall with me after, say hello.”</p>
<p>“I’d love that,” Arya replied. “I’ve never seen it, you know? I’ve seen the other end of the world and I’ve never seen the Wall.”</p>
<p>“You two,” said Sansa, firmly, holding out her arms until Jon gave her Bryar back, “should talk. I really need to go and do some more organising for tonight and Bryar will need to be fed soon.” She nodded farewell and strode across the courtyard towards the Great Keep.</p>
<p>“She’s well?” Jon asked Arya, his eyes following Sansa. “Theon’s well?”</p>
<p>“They’re ridiculous and stupid and in love, Jon. With each other and with Bryar. It’s positively revolting.” Arya made a grimace and then laughed at Jon’s expression and looped her arm through his. “Let me take you and Tormund to your quarters and you can tell me everything you’ve been doing for the last ten years.”</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>The feast had been jolly and noisy and particularly festive. Princess Bryar had made her appearance initially but after being thoroughly toasted, Lizelle retired with her to the nursery as the crowd began to grow more boisterous.</p>
<p>It was before the main game course, the centrepiece of which was to be the frankly enormous boar that Theon and the guards had brought back from the Wolfswood, that Sansa decided the time was right to do some business, before the inebriation became too widespread.</p>
<p>The Lords and their households all quietened as she passed on interesting news from the South and the East and the planned trading that was going to happen in the next year or so, and what cargo was expected to be delivered by each Lord to fulfil orders. They cheered and toasted Theon lustily when she let them know that, just that morning, they’d received a raven from Mistress Burley, who had returned to the Iron Islands with Queen Yara, and let them know that she had just given birth to a healthy baby girl, the Princess Asha Greyjoy, Heir to the Iron Islands and that mother and child were both doing well. </p>
<p>After that had settled down, Sansa’s voice turned more serious. “As you know, my Lords, a decision had to be made on the disposition of the Dreadfort. It has lain empty for too many years now. My Lords, you know of the evil reputation of Boltons and the… items we found in that fort that made clear the evil of the bastard Ramsay. Evil and darkness seem steeped in the very stones of that fort. But it is time to cleanse it, to remake it and rename it.”</p>
<p>Sansa took a deep breath then. Her decision was the right one, but she was unsure how popular it was going to be. “My Lords, you all heard of the death of Lord Mazen half a year ago. But you all also know that he has not been the true Lord of the Last Hearth for the last seven years, since he fell from his horse and cracked his head open. But under his daughter, Lady Cerys, Last Hearth has prospered and expanded and she has established excellent relationships with the Free Folk that trade now below the Wall. Lady Cerys, please stand.”</p>
<p>The woman who stood was not overly tall, but her flaming red hair made her appearance striking, her features strong and clever and only a couple of years younger than Sansa.</p>
<p>“Lady Cerys, I ask a great deal of you,” said Sansa. “I ask that you renounce Last Hearth and move with your household to the Dreadfort, to take that evil place and make it a place of peace and prosperity, as you have Last Hearth.”</p>
<p>Lady Cerys stared at Sansa for a moment and then nodded. “Your Grace,” she said. “As you know, my father swore our few men to the side of Jon Snow and yourself, against the Bolton bastard. He knew of the evil that was done by the Boltons and swore to fight against it. I swear now to continue that fight for you, my Queen in the North, and to erase the Bolton stain from the Dreadfort. I will make it a place anew, a place where people wish to come, and I will make it prosper.”</p>
<p>Sansa smiled then and nodded, Lady Cerys resuming her seat. There was a low murmur through the crowd of Lords, but she felt Theon’s reassuring grip on her fingers below the edge of the table, agreeing with her that the decision had been accepted. Sansa continued on then, setting out the cascading sequence of changes to the disposition of Last Hearth and beyond, until all the Lordships (and in the last case, another elevation to Ladyship) were filled again.</p>
<p>Finally Sansa sat, and took a sip of the mead, feeling her shoulders relax now that everything seemed to have gone well.</p>
<p>“She’s kissed by fire,” said Jon, from where he sat in his position as honoured guest on her left. Sansa raised a brow at him and he nodded at Lady Cerys at her table, his eyes suddenly bright. “It’s a Free Folk term for women with hair that colour. Kissed by fire.”</p>
<p>“The Mazens were originally from far north,” said Sansa. “One of the smallholdings that were up past Last Hearth. I understand there’s some Free Folk in Lady Cerys’ ancestry.” She looked at Jon and put a warning hand on his arm. “If you are going to speak to Cerys, don’t start with that. I don’t think that ancestry was necessarily by choice. But she has very good relationships with the Free Folk now. She manages a lot of the trade with them. I’m surprised you don’t already know her.”</p>
<p>Jon shrugged. “I wasn’t much interested in what was happening south of the Wall for a long time,” he said. “I left all of that to Tormund and Clegane.”</p>
<p>“Well,” said Sansa, very idly. “Looking after her father kept her very busy, as well as managing Last Hearth. She hasn’t had a lot of time to travel up to the Wall recently. She hasn’t even found time to marry yet.”</p>
<p>Jon finished the tankard of ale he’d been drinking and put it down on the table suddenly. “I think I’ve been a bit neglectful of important trading relationships,” he said. “I’m going to introduce myself to Lady Cerys.”</p>
<p>**</p>
<p>“Gods, Theon,” said Sansa, her fingers flexing in his hair, holding him exactly where he was. “Fucking gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh <em>fucking gods!</em>” The last rang out as her body stilled except for the shudder of her quim beneath Theon’s mouth and fingers and then the long fall down the other side. </p>
<p>He drew himself up the bed beside her, nestling into her side. “Good, Sans?” he smirked and laughed as she said, “<em>Fucking gods, Theon</em>,” again. His hard length nudged against her thigh, but as with the last few weeks, where Sansa’s exhaustion had lessened and how amorous she was rose, he made no move to do anything about it. </p>
<p>Sansa had appreciated it at first, allowing her to rediscover pleasure in her body as she recovered from the strain of child birth without any pressure to take it further. But tonight, she had decided, she felt comfortable that she had healed enough to try. So she wriggled slightly against Theon, coaxed his hips with her hands until he had turned more fully over her, his leg tangled over hers. </p>
<p>“Theon,” she breathed. “I want you.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure?” Theon asked, somewhat anxiously, although she felt the twitch of his hardness against her thigh. “I don’t want to do anything that hurts you…”</p>
<p>Sansa smiled, because sometime during the last year she had learned one of Theon’s secrets and she wielded that knowledge now, “I want your cock inside of me, Theon,” she murmured. “Your lovely cock. Inside of me. All of you. Do you want to be inside me, Theon?”</p>
<p>Theon made a noise deep in his throat as his hips twitched, almost without his volition. “Drowned God, Sansa,” he groaned. “Do you think it’s like a magic spell? Talking like that to me?”</p>
<p>“It always works,” she breathed into his ear, her hips undulating against him, her hand reaching down between their bodies, guiding him to her entrance. “Maybe it is a magic spell. You want to have your lovely cock inside of me, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“Fuck, Sansa,” breathed Theon and then gave a practiced thrust of his narrow hips, the tip of his cock parting her lips, sliding into her warmth. “Gods, Sans. Just let me know… if it hurts…”</p>
<p>“I want you to fuck me, Theon,” crooned Sansa, moving her hips, driving her quim forward. “Don’t you want to fuck me, Theon? With your lovely, big cock?”</p>
<p>“Seven fucking hells, Sansa,” said Theon and then his hips were moving, legs and hips and bodies moving against each other until he was fully buried inside her. “Gods, who taught you to say things like that?”</p>
<p>Sansa laughed, a high and breathy sound. “There’s an Ironborn man. Clever. Handsome. Lovely big cock,” she said. “He likes it when I tell him how much I love fucking him. Because,” and suddenly her eyes caught his, “I love fucking him. I love him. And I love having him inside me.”</p>
<p>“And he loves being inside you,” breathed Theon. And then he smirked and almost preened. “And if you keep wanting to mention how lovely and big his cock is, well he likes that, too.”</p>
<p>Sansa laughed then. “Gods, Theon, why did no-one ever tell me how much fun this is? Everyone always made it sound like it was my duty, that it was either terrifying or incredibly serious and solemn. Why did no one ever think to tell me how much you could laugh in bed?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Sans,” replied Theon, moving his hips gently, the softest movement of his body against hers. “I don’t know if I had much fun back in the day, no matter how much I liked doing it. But you make me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever known.”</p>
<p>“You mustn’t tell people that,” said Sansa, terribly seriously. “I’m the Queen in the North, Theon, all icy poise and steely calm.” She shifted her hips then, rocked them in time with Theon’s gentle thrusts. “If you tell people that I make you laugh, it will ruin my reputation.”</p>
<p>“We couldn’t have that, Sansa,” breathed Theon, upping the tempo of his thrusts slightly. “Imagine the look on Lord Glover’s face or Lord Tallhart’s if they ever heard you laugh. They think you’d eat their heart on a silver platter if you were peckish. They’d probably die in terror if they heard you laugh.” His words were interrupted constantly as he peppered kisses along her neck, across her breasts as his thrusts grew harder, faster. “And if they knew how you liked to talk about your husband’s cock…”</p>
<p>“How big it is?” crooned Sansa. “How lovely it is? How much I love having it inside me?” She gasped suddenly, dropped her hand down between her and Theon, stroking her pearl. “They’d die of fright, right there.”</p>
<p>“Gods, they would, wouldn’t they? And Cersei thought wildfire was one hell of a secret weapon.” Theon dropped a hand behind Sansa’s knee, drew her leg up, began to thrust harder. “All the Queen in the North would have to do to lay waste to entire armies is stand on the walls of Winterfell and shout ‘my husband has a lovely cock’.”</p>
<p>“Fucking hells, Theon,” Sansa said, torn between laughter and lust. Then her arm tightened around his shoulders and “<em>fucking gods, Theon,</em>” burst from her as she peaked again, followed, a few moments later by Theon’s moan as he spilled inside of her. </p>
<p>They grew silent then as Theon softened and drew out of Sansa, and curled against her side again. </p>
<p>Until Sansa suddenly wheezed and said softly, “My husband has a lovely cock!” and began to laugh helplessly and it only took a few seconds before Theon joined her in laughing until they cried. </p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>Lady Cerys was coming to Winterfell, eight months almost to the day since she had moved her household into the Dreadfort. There were fewer Lords than there had been at the feast to welcome Bryar, but a number of those closest to Winterfell made their way there. It surprised some of them, but not Sansa, that Jon Snow also rode into the keep, down from the Wall. </p>
<p>They gathered in the Great Hall in their morning, before the servants would gently shoo them away to begin preparations for the feast that night. </p>
<p>“Lady Cerys,” said Sansa, smiling at the woman. “You’ve told me you’ve thought of a new name for the Dreadfort, found a new purpose for it.”</p>
<p>“Yes, your Grace,” replied Cerys. “My household has worked hard on re-making the fort. It is still an unlovely thing on the outside, but the inside is far more welcoming now. I have thought about it long and hard, my Queen, and I ask that you let me rename it. I wish it to be the Resthold, your Grace.”</p>
<p>“The Resthold,” said Sansa. “I understand there is a reason for your choice of name.”</p>
<p>“Yes, your Grace,” replied Cerys. “The Night’s Watch has changed now. No longer do the folk of Westeros send only criminals and bastards and younger brothers to swear to the Wall for life. With the fall of the Night King, things have changed at the Wall. The Watch is still needed, but it is no longer a sworn life without rest or succour, but instead an assignment from amongst the north’s guards, limited in time. There are also Free Folk that would like, sometimes, to come south. Sometimes to heal hurts in the body, sometimes in the mind, sometimes just to see what lies south of the Wall.”</p>
<p>Cerys looked around the room then, at the other Lords and Ladies, then turned her gaze back to her Queen. “I have negotiated with the Night’s Watch, your Grace. And the Free Folk. They have agreed that the Resthold will be where those who need time away from the Wall can go to rest and recover, where the Free Folk may go to learn the ways beyond the Wall.” She took a deep breath then, but she was a woman fierce with pride and brave and she did not hesitate long. “To cement this bond between Free Folk and Resthold, I seek your Grace’s permission to marry Jon Snow.”</p>
<p>There was a murmur throughout the room then, a run of quiet exclamations and whispers, that dropped to nothing as Sansa spoke, “And does Jon Snow agree to this proposal?”</p>
<p>“He does,” said Jon, rising suddenly from his seat, his eyes on Lady Cerys. “Gladly and with my whole heart.”</p>
<p>Sansa smiled then, an utterly joyous smile. “Then I agree to both the new name of Resthold and the marriage of Lady Cerys Mazen and Jon Snow of the Night’s Watch and the Free Folk.”</p>
<p>“Am I to understand,” Lord Cerwyn stood, frowning slightly, “that Jon Snow will be the new Lord of the Dread… of Resthold?”</p>
<p>“Lady Cerys Mazen is the Lady of Resthold,” said Sansa, and her voice was suddenly steely. “Jon Snow will be her husband. My disposition of the fort has not changed because of this proposed alliance.”</p>
<p>Lord Cerwyn bowed his head. “I acknowledge the point, your Grace. Lady Cerys has long since proven her skills at Last Hearth.” He smiled suddenly, an sly sense of humour suddenly surfacing. “I just wanted to be sure how the invitations to the wedding feast might be worded.”</p>
<p>Sansa smiled and nodded her head and then raised her cup in a toast to Lady Cerys and Jon Snow’s pending nuptials, the happy couple so lost in gazing at each other that they barely noticed. </p>
<p>“Jon looks… happy,” said Theon. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before,” and then said “ow!” as Sansa punched his thigh under the table. </p>
<p>“Be nice, Theon,” she said. “Though by the look on their faces, I’m willing to bet you a dragon that a second cousin to Bryar will be on the way before they get to a heart tree.”</p>
<p>“I think I’d lose that bet if I took it on,” grinned Theon. “She looks like she wants to eat him with cream.”</p>
<p>“And what exactly would she do with that cream, Theon Greyjoy?” Sansa asked.</p>
<p>“How about I get some delivered to our bedchambers tonight and we can find out?” he replied.</p>
<p>“Theon Greyjoy,” said Sansa, “I am ridiculously glad I married you.” She paused for a second. “Get some honey delivered as well. I have… ideas.”</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>Ser Brienne of Tarth’s party was small - there wasn’t much need for many guards when she was one of the most skilled knights in Westeros. Her reputation alone tended to keep her safe. </p>
<p>But what the party lacked in size, it made up for in height.</p>
<p>“How old is he?” Theon whispered to Sansa as Brienne and her son prepared to swing down from their horses.</p>
<p>“Twelve or thirteen,” replied Sansa, “I’m not quite sure.”</p>
<p>“Which means he probably going to grow a bit more. He’s going to need a longbow made just for him.”</p>
<p>Then Sansa was gone from his side, wrapping Brienne in a firm embrace. “Brienne,” she said. “And this must be Jaime of Tarth.”</p>
<p>“Yes, your… Sansa,” Brienne changed what she was going to say at Sansa’s warning glance. “My son.”</p>
<p>“Lord Jaime,” said Sansa. “I am delighted to meet you. You look very much like your father. If somewhat taller.”</p>
<p>Jaime, his features clearly stamped with his father’s handsomeness, his hair bright golden, topping his mother by half a head already, was still only a young man, barely past a boy, and he blushed bright red at Sansa’s words. “So I’ve been told, your Grace,” he said. </p>
<p>“Well, Winterfell is an old keep,” said Sansa. “Just remember to duck when you go through doorways. Lord Theon is looking forward to having you as his squire.”</p>
<p> “That I am,’ said Theon. “And your first job…” </p>
<p>He was interrupted then as a small child, all dark red hair and sea-green eyes suddenly toddled her way into the yard, the long-suffering Arlette trailing behind her. “Dada!” said Bryar, imperatively. She toddled to Theon’s feet, held out her hands. “Dada!” </p>
<p>Theon stooped down, collected Bryar into his arms. “What do you want, Bryar?”</p>
<p>“Dada. Dut gone. No Dut.”</p>
<p>Theon sighed then and looked at his new squire. “Your first job, Jaime of Tarth, is to help me find Bryar’s wooden duck. Which has, as it is wont to do, gone trundling off on its own again. Bring your gear,” he said as he turned and walked towards the Great Keep. Jaime looked at his mother, who nodded and collected as much of his belongings together as he could before running off after Theon before he disappeared into the keep. </p>
<p>“And that’s Bryar,” said Sansa to Brienne. “You’ll meet her properly later. She won’t rest until she gets Dut back.”</p>
<p>“Jaime had a wooden puppy. On wheels,” said Brienne. “There was no rest for anyone if it went missing.” She smiled at Sansa then. “I understand the importance of Dut to peaceful management of Winterfell.”</p>
<p>“We are really pleased you thought to foster Jaime here,” said Sansa softly. “I have seen so little of you since you went back to Tarth. It will be lovely to have a reason to send a raven to you every week.”</p>
<p>“I always wanted him to come to Winterfell. It is a place of… great happiness for me, Sansa. Good memories. I think he’ll thrive here.”</p>
<p>“Now I’ve got you staying in the quarters you were in last time,” said Sansa. “You will stay for a few weeks, yes? You know Tyrion is on his way? He wants so much to meet Bryar and to see Jaime again and I know he wants to see you as well.”</p>
<p>“I know,” said Brienne. “And of course I’ll stay.”</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>“I loved my brother very much,” Tyrion said to Sansa, slouching back in the chair in her solar. “But I think it’s entirely unfair that he managed to have a son that tall and handsome. The boy is nearly as tall as the Mountain already!”</p>
<p>“Well, it does seem to come with being from Tarth. Maybe it’s something in the water,” replied Sansa.</p>
<p>“Do you think your Bryar will be tall?’ Tyrion asked and Sansa nodded. </p>
<p>“It seems likely,” she replied. “She’s the tallest of all the girls in Wintertown around her age. Theon says that Asha is a lot smaller than Bryar was at the same age, so it looks like she’ll tend much more to the Stark side, than the Greyjoy.”</p>
<p>“But she has her father’s eyes,” observed Tyrion. “They’re quite striking already. She’ll be a great beauty, I think. And,” he took a sip of his wine before saying the next, “at least it means there are no longer any questions over who her father may be.”</p>
<p>Sansa rolled her eyes. “Thank the gods for that. She’s so obviously Theon’s, it stopped all those rumours dead in their tracks.”</p>
<p>“I know…” Tyrion started and stopped, then started again. “Varys knew many things,” he said. “Many things that he passed on to me. I know what Ramsay did to Theon. Not just the rumours. What was done. How… how is it that Theon has fathered a child, Sansa?”</p>
<p>Sansa closed her eyes for a moment and sighed, opened them again. “Love,” she said softly. “A sister’s love. Two sisters. And a brother. And magic. And more courage than you could imagine. A debt that was owed by the Lord of Light was paid.”</p>
<p>Tyrion nodded slowly. “So he’s no longer a member of the Coalition of the Maimed. And I see you’ve both been making up for lost time since then.” He nodded at the gentle swell of Sansa’s belly, which had only started to show in the last week or so. </p>
<p>“Like you have no idea,” she grinned suddenly and Tyrion held up his hands as if to ward off a blow. </p>
<p>“Don’t tell me!” he said. “You were my innocent child bride! I have no need to know what you’re doing with that Greyjoy boy. Not when they’re famous for their… endowments.”</p>
<p>“As they should be,” said Sansa, smugly and laughed when Tyrion looked suitably horrified. </p>
<p>“How are you going at Casterly Rock?” she asked to change the subject and save Tyrion’s delicate sensibilities. “Have you worked out a way to be rich yet?”</p>
<p>“My father had gold,” said Tyrion. “And I’ve got shit. Shit and mud.” He smiled at Sansa’s look. “You remember you sent that boy with the knack for plumbing down to Davos? I stole him. Once he’d finished his plans for the sewers in King’s Landing, I stole him away with the lure of more money. He’s been training people who think like him. Clever people who want to solve problems. Not like the Maesters, who are all… hidebound and creaky. So now I hire them out at enormous fees to fix the plumbing in all the towns that are rebuilding. We’re even sending them over the sea to Essos. Not just plumbing. All sorts of things. But the plumbing is good. That thing he did with the pipes and the hot water here in Winterfell - he found a way to make it happen with fire and small pipes in places without hot springs. You have no idea how much a southern Lady will persuade her Lord to pay to have a hot bath whenever she wants.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s the shit,” said Sansa. “And the mud?”</p>
<p>“Pottery,” said Tyrion. “There was a kiln I saw in Essos. A climbing kiln. We found the right kind of mud in Casterly Rock, so I had one built and now I’ve got whole towns making and selling pottery. From sewage pipes to tableware. I’ve got artists to paint things on them as well. Casterly Rock pottery is starting to be famous. Gods, imagine how horrified Lord Tywin Lannister would be at the thought of his monstrous son making money with shit and mud and trinkets that get sold to farmer’s wives as wedding gifts to their children.”</p>
<p>“Our parents made us, Tyrion,” said Sansa, softly. “But they didn’t make us what we are today. We both… we all… have learned so many things. Including how to be better people than those who came before us. To make the world a better place.”</p>
<p>“That was Daenerys’ dream, you know,” said Tyrion. “To make the world a better place than her father did.”</p>
<p>Sansa sighed. She hadn’t liked Daenerys Stormborn but sometimes she felt a pang of sympathy for a woman who had genuinely tried to break the wheel, to tame the dragons and had failed and fallen, so close to her goal. “She did,” said Sansa, an offering to Tyrion, who had liked Daenerys, maybe even loved her. “In a way. She didn’t get what she wanted, but we took what she gave to us and we made the world a better place. A place where our children can grow up in peace.” She raised an eyebrow. “Where our cities don’t smell like shit.”</p>
<p>“And our baths are always warm,” replied Tyrion. “I would toast to that.”</p>
<p>Sansa raised her cup then, honeyed water rather than Tyrion’s wine. “To Daenerys Stormborn,” she said. “For allowing us to make the world a better place.”</p>
<p>“To Daenerys Stormborn. And those of us who have made the world a better place,” replied Tyrion and he and Sansa drank to that. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So I did this separately from Gifts, because I didn’t think I wanted Gifts to go this way. But the more I wrote of it, the more its been seducing me. And I realised that all of my plotting for gifts pretty much finishes at about ten years after Sansa and Theon are married. So now I need to think about it :)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this is a Gifts Universe AU. I love my Gifts Theon/Sansa but I do want to keep the main story there a certain way, and this is not the way I want to take it. But I have had this idea, based on a prompt for quite some time, and now that I’ve set out where everyone ends up at the end of Season 8 (my version), I could finally write this. </p>
<p>For XxXCaunwenNestrielXxX, whose prompt so long ago made this unfurl inside my head :)</p>
<p>I will post once a week, after my Saturday morning gym session until it’s all up :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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